Pilia'loha Equation: Monster in the Deep
by manitounell
Summary: "Who?" Jack said into his phone, an incredulous expression on his face. "Who's here?"


_These are not my characters, I'm only playing with them for a little while._

_This story follows up on my previous two stories: "Stars in the Sky," and "Bright Morning Comes," but can be read as a standalone. (I hope!)_

_I don't list this story (or my other two) as a crossover, because in my heart it's really a Eureka story – it just happens to have characters from another universe stopping by, mostly to throw greater light on Eureka and the people who live there from the perspective of an outsider or two. However, if you happen to also be a fan of H5O, because I started this story during the summer between S3 and S4, this story is canon compatible through S3…but ignores S4 entirely._

_**Pilia'loha Equation: Monster in the Deep**_

_Late Saturday Evening, Northern Nevada_

"Mom?" Steve gripped the phone tighter to stop the trembling in his hand. He could not believe this was really happening, that he was this desperate. All his training, all his skills, his years in the military, his time in law enforcement, and still he had ended up here. "Mom? I need your help."

"Steve?"

"Yeah, Mom. It's me."

"Of course I'll help you, honey. Whatever you need!"

At the sound of that familiar, confident voice, he could feel his frantic heartbeat begin to slow. The tightness in his chest begin to ease. He fought back with a rush of anger. He wasn't six, and his mother's bag of carnie tricks wasn't going to cut it. It was her professional contacts they needed now, however much he hated that part of her life.

"What's going on? Where are you?"

"Outside Reno. It's Danny. It's bad. Really bad." His voice broke then, an ugly surge of helpless panic threatening to overwhelm him. He took a shaky breath, got control. "He was tortured. Beaten. His kidneys and intestines took the most damage. The surgeons did their best, but the repairs aren't holding. And now he's so weak that if they try again, the surgeons think it could… that he might not…"

He trailed off, unable to complete that sentence, unable to name a world without Danny.

"What happened?" Doris gasped.

"It's a long story, and I can't get into it," or I'll start coming apart, he finished in his head. "I think he can be saved, made whole again, the same way Zane Donovan was. With new organs built just for him. But I don't know how to find Eureka. All I know is, it's in Oregon."

"Oh, Steve. I'm so sorry."

He felt all the air rush out of the car. "You won't help me?"

"Oh God no! Of course I'll help you! I meant, I'm so sorry about Danny! You want me to find the location of Eureka, right? Okay?"

"Okay." It wasn't, not really. Trust between them was a fragile thing, easily damaged and hard to repair. But 'okay' was all he could give her. Danny's condition was dire and Doris had the right little black book. "Yes. Please find Eureka. You know General Mansfield. You probably know better than I do how to reach him."

"Before I do anything, you have to understand. This will cost you, Steve."

He held on to his disappointment, and his rage, but only just barely. He knew his voice was with twisted and bitter with the effort. "Of course." He made his voice as insulting as he dared, "Mom. Whatever you want."

"Steven McGarrett!" Now her voice was thick with wounded anger. "For the love of God. I am not your enemy. You won't owe me anything. I will do this for you. For Danny. Whatever bargains I make in this are my own. But, it's Eureka, honey. A scientific think tank so shrouded in secrecy it's almost mythical. I know only enough to know what a very big deal it is. Once you're part of it," she sighed, and her voice softened, "The DOD will own another piece of you. Of all of you. Catherine too. But especially Danny. I assume she's with you now?"

"She's driving. And, how can they own more of me than they already do?"

"After all you've been through? I can't believe you can even frame that question!" Now she sounded exasperated instead of defensive and hurt.

He was just bewildered. "Mom? What are you talking about?"

"Do you understand that Zane does not own his own heart? That his entire body is now, literally, a top-secret research site? That if they even agree to try something similar for Danny, he will also become a top-secret research project?"

"I…." he trailed off. He hadn't really known, or considered. He'd just clung to the fact that Zane got up and walked out of the hospital less than a week after sustaining a crushing blow to his chest. That Zane and his wife Jo could access the care and treatment Danny needed now. That they would help him save Danny, because that's what friends do. "It's Danny, Mom."

Danny. Images flashed inside his head. Danny, head thrown back and laughing. Danny, his face soft with pride and love as he watched his daughter Gracie. Danny, grim and determined while he pursued some criminal through the back streets of Honolulu. Danny had blustered his way into Steve's life, shaken it up, turned it inside out, put it back better than it had been before. He was an essential part of everything Steve was and ever would be.

"It's Danny," he repeated.

"Okay, sweetheart. I understand, I do. And I will find you the information you want. Just," Doris paused, "be careful and keep your wits about you when you get there. Don't be so panicked about Danny that you don't listen to the deal you're being offered. Okay?"

"Okay."

"How much time do you have?"

"The doctors were vague. Maybe four days, maybe one. We're already headed for Oregon. We should reach the border in about six hours."

"I'll call you as soon as I have something. Be careful, Steven. I love you."

"We will. Thank you." Because he'd learned too many lessons about regret not to, he choked out, "I love you, too, Mom."

In their own, very screwed-up, way, it was even true.

_Two Days Earlier_

_Thursday Morning, Director's Office, Rockwell Industries, Eureka, Oregon_

"No!"

Zane wanted to cringe. His first response had come out way too close to a yelp. Not at all how he had planned it. Squaring up his shoulders and modulating his voice several notches deeper, he tried again. "No. I don't have time be a judge at the Tesla Science Fair. Not this year."

"Zane." Henry drew out his name, using his best gently chastening tone, the slow, measured, disappointed-but-still-hoping-for-a-better-you tone. He'd always been good with that tone, even before he became Director Deacon, head of Rockwell Industries. Now he was a freaking virtuoso. Even knowing it was merely a tool Henry used, however expertly, Zane still felt his will to resist eroding away and his desire to please sitting up and shaking itself out.

Henry continued, his voice taking on more and more of the fervor of an enthusiast, the kind who can't quite believe that you're not just kidding when you say you aren't a fan, "It's Tesla's 'big game'! Homecoming and spring formal all wrapped into one! A festival of innovation and exploration, and with yearlong internship here at RI as the prize! It's how we give back to all the families of Eureka. Every section director takes a turn. Except you. You've been avoiding it for years. It's time."

"Henry!" However effective Henry's tactics, Zane rushed to defend himself. "Come on. Not true! I've advised nearly every year I've been in Eureka. But this year I have about five important deadlines coming up." Holding his palms open in a 'what can you do' sort of way, he was pleased with how regretful he managed to sound when he added, "I just don't have the time to spare."

"Hmm." Henry eyed Zane carefully, as though he were actually considering this. Then he turned his head to look at his chief of staff. "Larry? What were you telling me about Dr. Donovan's latest projects?"

Larry consulted the data pad in his hands. Wearing another of his ridiculous bowtie and cardigan outfits, he positively radiated smarmy mastery in the minutia of running Rockwell Industries. That he was, in his own self-important way, extremely good at his job, only made his many affectations all the more annoying as far as Zane was concerned.

Pretending to read what Zane was sure he already had memorized, Larry said, "Section Five is on time or ahead of schedule on the sonic, electromagnetic and predictive simulation projects. The field test for the flexible submersible revealed the need for a redesigned articulation joint, and the PULP prototype development is running behind." Larry raised a critical eyebrow, "What with the exploding and all. The incident report is still being written." Larry sat back, dark amusement glittering in his eyes. "Dr. Donovan certainly has room in his schedule for a day of evaluating science projects; many developed by the best young minds in Eureka."

Zane wanted to gag. Best Young Minds in Eureka. In Larry's mouth, that could only refer to the best young suck-ups. What an appalling group of earnest, brown-nosing, ass-kissers to consider. And trust Larry to find a way to make him look bad while pointing out that most of his department's projects were going very well, thanks so much. Asshat.

Shooting him an 'I will repay you' glare, he said, "I think I liked it better when you all used to make a point of calling me 'Mr.' Donovan. Less responsibility and no expectation of good citizenship."

Larry, unmoved by unspoken threats, smirked his supercilious smirk. "Well," he drawled, "Once UCLA discovered that they hadn't actually completed the paperwork to revoke your doctorate after all," he shrugged, "far be it from us here at Rockwell Industries to deny you the title you earned."

"Bite me, Larry." And UCLA had totally revoked his doctorate once he was convicted, some mealy-mouthed garbage about him not living up to the highest expectations of ethical behavior violating their honor code. More like not wanting to be associated with a felonious fuck up like himself. They'd only pretended they hadn't once he emerged from the black hole the DOD shoved him in and he'd wanted to publish again under his own name.

If he'd realized something as revolting as judging high school science fairs was a likely consequence of returning to the scholarly fold, maybe he would have abandoned the whole idea. No way the status conscious parents of Eureka would have allowed the holder of a mere Masters degree to judge their precious offspring. That the same parents would love it, now that he was once again Dr. Donovan, author of last year's most talked about article in string theory, just highlighted how ludicrous the whole thing was.

Henry sighed and leaned back. As he shifted his weight to cross his legs, a grating, metal on metal squeak made Zane wince. The ancient springs of Henry's 1940s-era executive chair resisted all applications of WD-40 and continued on their merry, squealing way. It would have driven Zane to hurl the entire stupid thing out the plate glass windows that overlooked the rotunda below. But Henry liked to rock things old school, mostly to disguise how very far ahead the curve he really was. He said now, "It's your turn to be one of the judges. It is one of the responsibilities that comes with your position. And please don't try to push it off on Parish."

"But Parish likes it!" Zane declared, with his brightest, most earnest 'I'm just trying to help' expression firmly in place, all the while damning Henry's ability to know what he would have tried next. He had to get less transparent, or he'd find himself on the welcoming committee the next time some curious Senator or Congressperson showed up.

"Yes." Henry was nodding agreeably, "Parish does enjoy being a judge. Unfortunately," and he sighed in apparently sincere regret, "the students at Tesla don't like him much."

Of course they didn't. Isaac Parish was a patronizing, officious prig when he got his judgment on. Which he loved to do.

Henry straightened up and smiled in a satisfied sort way, waving his finger at Zane as he said, "But they do like you. A lot. Sometimes they even listen to you."

Ghastly, vile children. They usually only listened right after he said something idiotic, like 'there's a way to make that bigger! (louder! messier!)'.

"But there's always explosions!" he protested.

Larry sniffed disdainfully.

Zane tried again. "Or goo."

Henry was pretending, with little to no success, to hide a smirk behind his fingers.

Zane finished weakly, "Or exploding goo."

Zane's protests were absurd and they all knew it. It was no secret that he liked explosions. Or that he had a soft spot for at least a few of the pimply-faced agents of destruction roaming the halls of Tesla High School. Or that sometimes he was the one to help the more adventurous and less rule bound among them blow things up.

"Well," Henry paused and eyed him carefully, "I suppose I could ask Jo to find a substitute for you. Again."

Zane glowered balefully, annoyed that the director had resorted to such a low comedy gag. Were they all in some sort of sitcom now? The type with the smart, capable wife and the lazy, bumbling husband? Seriously? Sure, Zane wouldn't enjoy his wife's exasperated rant at hearing this request for the third year in a row, but that wouldn't keep him from trying to dodge the gig anyway.

He understood that the science fair was an important bridge between the community and Rockwell Industries. He got that. He really did. He knew that the kids and their families looked toward the Science Fair as a culmination of virtually everything they were hoping for in living on the equivalent of an isolated military base. The internship alone could launch a highflying career. He knew that Henry did his best to rotate the job between all the section heads, and that one thing or another had made it impossible for him to serve as one of the judges since he got the promotion. He knew he was overdue to take it on, representing RI really was part of his job, and that it really was his turn this year.

It made him want to rip off his necktie before it strangled him.

Only, he wasn't wearing a tie. He never wore a tie. He only owned two. Both gifts from his mother. Both carefully hung on the same hanger as the sport coat he had worn to accept the Spidaro Foundation Prize at Cornell. He hadn't been able to squeeze his shoulders into that jacket since prison, but hadn't quite been ready to get rid of it either. The hanger had migrated to a basement closet, coming to rest tucked in behind the fly-fishing gear one of Jo's brothers had sent years ago as an engagement present. They used the fishing gear about as often as he wore the ties.

Mrs. Spidaro had loved awarding that prize. Her excitement had made winning it a lot more fun. She also had an amazing 'hoping for a better you' tone. She would not have approved of his weaseling behavior now.

"Fine," he sighed after a long moment. "I'll do it."

He refused to let his grudging concession reflect any awareness of Jo's instinct to reward good conduct.

Henry smiled brilliantly, laughter twinkling in his eyes. "Why thank you, Dr. Donovan! RI appreciates the donation of your valuable time."

Zane tried to look overburdened, but ended up smiling himself, if a bit ruefully. Exploding goo. How pathetic an effort was that? "I'm so glad," he said, standing up to leave, "And, you're welcome."

"Tuesday," Larry called as Zane fled Henry's office. "8am, Tesla High."

_Thursday Morning, Honolulu, Hawaii_

Steve spun on his heels, taking in Catherine's entire bedroom one more time. Where in the hell did she hide her duffle bag?

Inspiration hit and he dropped to his knees and looked under the bed. Rewarded by the sight of not one but many empty backpacks, duffels and satchels, he fished out one that looked about the right size and tossed it up on the bed. Moving quickly now, he filled it with the items he'd already assembled, ticking each off in his head as he worked; jeans, tee-shirts, flannel shirt, sweater, jacket, underthings, socks, yoga pants, boots and flip-flops. The toiletries in her bathroom baffled him, so after tossing in her hairbrush, he assured himself she could survive with whatever was in her handbag plus a drugstore visit. On top of the clothes he placed her spare handgun, her duty weapon, clips and ammunition, an expandable baton and two knives, then zipped it closed.

He spent the trip to Pearl Harbor-Hickam on the phone, first to the Governor's office and then to the base, arranging for their leaves.

Cath's commanding officer had her waiting in his office. From her unhappy glower Steve suspected she'd been dressed down, on account of him, again.

Her hissed, "What the hell, Steve? You can't just yank me off duty whenever it suits you!"

only confirmed his guess. "Especially when you don't even ask first!"

"It's Danny. He's missing. I'll explain as soon as we're on the plane."

Surprise, shock, and horror flickered across her face, then her jaw firmed up, her lips flattened in a determined line and she raised her chin. She tucked her hand into his and squeezed hard, conveying all they couldn't say here with the force of her grip and the warmth in her voice. "Lead the way."

He clung to the lifeline she offered, not letting go until they reached his truck. Every time he had needed her, even times when he had stupidly believed he hadn't, she had been there for him. Now that he needed her more than he had ever needed her in his life, he could only marvel that she was with him still. Sometimes the atavistic urge to lay something large and dead at her feet was almost overwhelming. Fortunately, so far, he'd resisted it.

She didn't say anything else until they were buckled into their seats on the small charter jet, engines warming up for takeoff. "Okay. Spill, McGarrett."

"Rachel called. Danny was supposed to pick up the kids and the nanny for a trip to the zoo at ten this morning, Las Vegas time."

Rachel was Danny's ex-wife. The 'kids' were Danny's daughter Grace and her younger, half-brother Charlie. And Steve understood all the reasons why Danny had decided to allow Grace to move to Vegas with her mother and stepfather. Hell, he had even agreed with them at the time. Two broken families were clearly worse than one, and Rachel and Stan Edward's relationship had been cracking under the strain of living in two places. But right now Steve was pissed. If Grace Williams had been here, in Hawaii, Danny would be here, and this would not have happened.

"She said she didn't get worried right away, because it's easy to get turned around in their neighborhood, and then she only got mad when he didn't answer his phone. But by eleven thirty or so, she knew something was wrong. She got Stan's people to get her into Danny's hotel room." Stan was a very successful real estate developer, among other things. "Danny's phone was by the bed, his gun still in the room safe, his rental still in the parking garage. She said she couldn't tell if he'd slept there because the maid service had already been through. That's when she called me, swearing up and down that she'll kill him when she finds him for not agreeing to stay in their guest house."

"Is it Stan's business?" Cath asked.

"No. Or, at least, Rachel says it isn't, and I don't think Stan is stupid enough to lie to both of us about it." Rachel's second husband could be an arrogant blowhard, but where family was concerned he had proven himself more than once to be a better man than he appeared.

"Alright. Tell me what you've done so far."

He told her everything. The phone calls to hotel security, to the Las Vegas police, to Stan. The security camera confirmation that Danny had gone up to his room just before eleven pm on Wednesday night, directly after getting back from dinner and movies with Grace. After that, nothing. The best lead so far was the hotel maid who swore Danny had slept in the room, but the Las Vegas detective wasn't sure he believed her. Chin and Kono were working the Honolulu end, trying to figure out who knew that Danny was leaving for Las Vegas and when. He finished, "And so it's up to us to find him, on the ground in Las Vegas."

_Friday Morning, Las Vegas, Nevada_

Steve glowered down at the hotel maid, a stolid, middle-aged woman with thinning, badly dyed hair scraped back into a mean little bun. She glowered right back at him, her small, dark eyes nearly slits over her plump cheeks, her lips drawn into a deep, stubborn frown. Everything about her screamed resentment; with him, with the hotel, with the Las Vegas police detective who had pulled her in, with her ugly, ill-fitting uniform, with the disruption in her working day. And he decided he did not give one good Goddamn what her problems were.

He and Catherine had arrived in Las Vegas a little after midnight, local time. Rachel had a driver waiting for them, who took them straight to her house. She and Stan were awake to greet them, but had nothing more to add to what little they already knew. Danny had arrived the previous weekend to spend his daughter's spring break with her. Each day had been devoted to Gracie showing Danny around her new town. Their evenings were spent at the Edward's house, which was even more gigantic and ostentatious than the one in Honolulu.

Danny hadn't reported anything out of the ordinary to them and none of them had noticed anything either. Chin had pulled Danny's credit card records and sent them to Rachel while they were in the air. The various charges for admissions, meals, snacks, and parking confirmed the same events. After realizing they were down to repeating everything for the third time, Steve and Cath had accepted the offer to stay in the guest house – which was bigger than either of their actual houses in Hawaii – and managed a few hours of restless, fretful sleep.

As soon as they could the next day, Steve and Catherine met with the local detective, who took them straight to Danny's hotel. They had examined his room and car, not that either had anything new to reveal. Now they were in the manager's conference room, facing down the hostile maid.

Twenty minutes into the interrogation, the local detective, an affably plodding sort of fellow who may or may not have been hiding a sharp mind behind his thirty extra pounds of middle aged flesh, was repeating, "I know you're lying, you know you're lying, we all know you are lying. Who paid you off and why?"

Steve lost what little patience and politeness he'd been clinging to. He reached down and wrenched the maid's chair around, bringing his face to within inches of hers. "I have your address. I will tear your house apart looking for evidence. I will terrorize your children. I will find something, anything, and turn it over to the cops. I will make your life a living hell. You understand me?"

Her eyes flared at his intensity and she jerked back as far as she could.

"Steve!" Cath cried, and began tugging ineffectually at his shoulder, "Calm down! You can't threaten witnesses!"

He turned his head to glare at her, wondering why on earth a naval officer who had served three tours in Afghanistan was scrabbling uselessly at his arm, but to his surprise, she wasn't looking at him at all. She was looking beseechingly at the maid. "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! He's out of control!"

It clicked. He stood to whirl on Cath, towering dramatically over her, waving his arms and yelling, "Don't touch me! I'm not out of control! I know exactly what I'm doing!"

Cath shrank back, holding up her hands and making vague placating gestures. "Steve! Please! You're frightening me! You won't help Danny like this!"

He seized her by the arms and shook her, still shouting in panicked rage, which was frighteningly real. Danny had been snatched over twenty-four hours ago. The odds of retrieving him alive and unharmed reduced dramatically by the hour. "Don't tell me how to do my job! I'm totally in control!"

"Hey!" the Las Vegas cop barked, "Hey! Calm down! Both of you!" and he tried to push Steve away from Cath, who used this as an opportunity to fling herself against a wall, landing hard and sobbing quietly.

"Okay!" wailed the maid. "Okay, mister! I'll tell you."

As soon as the cop escorted the whimpering maid out of the room, Steve pulled Catherine close and hugged her tightly. At first he thought the heart-pounding trembling was her, reacting to their scene. Then he realized it was him. He held on until his body finally stilled.

_Friday afternoon, S.A.R.A.H. (__**S**__elf __**A**__ctuated __**R**__esidential __**A**__utomated __**H**__abitat__), 1 Coriolis Loop, Eureka, Oregon_

"No. Not like that, like this," Kevin reached across the big dinning table to sketch out the joint he was trying to describe, "See?"

"Oh Fuck Yeah!" Dre chortled, his short locs bobbing as he laughed, "Awesome! This is going to be the best."

"But," Connor interrupted, "how do we keep it from seizing up as soon as it's in the water and sediment works its way in?"

"We'll use a lubricant that Dr. McAdams has been working on. I'm sure he'll be willing to let us test it, if we share the data."

"Won't that contaminate our data if any gets in the filters?" Sophie asked.

"It shouldn't. It's environmentally neutral. But it has a distinct chemical marker we can filter out on our end if we're worried about it."

"I'm worried about it. We'll need another sensor feed," Sophie declared. "Can we handle that? And we will need more bandwidth to accommodate the extra data. Plus more processing time if we have to clean the data before we analyze it." She frowned. "I wish we could ask Zane."

"We can ask Tim."

Sophie rolled her eyes and flipped her long, shiny, dark ponytail over her shoulder. "I'm way better with computers than Tim McAdams. He's such a dork, Kev. Why did you ask him for help?"

"Dr. McAdams knows what he's doing, guys. For real. RI recruited him from his post-doc because of his research into innovative submersibles. And this should help him test some stuff he needs, too. Win-win for everyone."

"Right up until Zane figures out you've found a backdoor into his section." Dre shook his head in disapproval. "There is no way he won't spot your designs in McAdams' project. And then he'll tell your mom you snuck into a DOD design team."

Kevin shrugged this off. When Zane figured it out, he probably wouldn't tell his mom. Or, at least, not until after he gave Kevin a chance to plead his case. If the articulation joint worked. He hoped.

"Guys!" Connor interjected, snapping his fingers in impatience, "Come on! We've got like, less than two days to get this finished and in the water! Focus!"

"We've got everything but this last prototype working in tanks now, Connor. We've got a solid project even if we don't move up to real world testing," Sophie reminded him.

"Solid, but not excellent!" Connor insisted. "I want to win, not get honorable mention! You guys may already have sure shots at early admits at MIT and Cal Poly, but I don't!"

"Yeah, we know! Chill man," Kevin looked around the table, "We can handle it. Most everything we need for the next round of improvements is in the basement storerooms at school, and I snagged us a key card."

"Kevin," S.A.R.A.H.'s disembodied, digitized voice made them all jump. The Artificial Intelligence who managed Kevin's family home had been quiet since providing snacks and beverages, off attending to something of her own. Her sudden return was shocking.

"Would you like my assistance with your project?" she inquired, adding rather smugly, "I have the server capacity you require."

Kevin exchanged wild, horrified glances with his friends, and they all rose hastily to their feet.

"No, no, S.A.R.A.H. Not necessary!" He made his voice as sincere and chipper as he could, which was actually pretty damn good, if he did think so himself. Keeping S.A.R.A.H. from attempting to manage his entire existence, including schoolwork and his social life, was an essential skill for living with the inquisitive AI. "We have full use of all the supplies we need for our science fair projects," he assured her. "Including servers and bandwidth. You can check the school science fair page if you don't believe me."

"But, Kevin, shouldn't your school science fair project be complete already? It's due next week and it's already Friday afternoon." S.A.R.A.H.'s voice turned wheedling. "My calculations suggest that you are nearly out of time for making the improvements you are proposing. My assistance would dramatically improve your outcomes."

"Nah!" Kevin waved this away with a brightly false grin. It wasn't that S.A.R.A.H. was wrong, exactly, but her assistance would be more or less a combination of massive cheating –no one else had a fully self-aware AI at home – and getting your mom to finish your school project for you. Both things Kevin had big-ass issues with. That S.A.R.A.H was sophisticated enough to play with the ethics here, on the grounds that it would be merely technological support as opposed to substantive contribution, didn't make it any better.

"Just some minor additions, last minute modifications," he assured the AI in his most confident, most careless tone. "And school is open all weekend so kids can keep working. Nothing for you to worry about, and so NOT a problem." Kevin was shoving their papers and data pads into his satchel. "Tell mom we'll be eating pizza at Connor's tonight, okay? Thanks S.A.R.A.H!"

"Don't you want to be here when Zoe and Sheriff Carter arrive? This is her first visit home since Thanksgiving." S.A.R.A.H's voice had become reproachful.

"Zoe's coming home?" Connor spun back to look at Kevin. "You didn't say anything about that!"

Kevin grimaced. Connor had been nursing a massive crush on Zoe Carter since they were all, like, eleven and she was fifteen. Once Kevin's mom got together with Zoe's dad, and he and his mom and little sister Jenna had all moved into S.A.R.A.H. with Sheriff Carter, Connor had lived for Zoe's brief visits home during university vacations.

S.A.R.A.H herself was obsessed with family togetherness, and blithely ignored all boundaries when it came to nurturing relations among the Carter/Blake clan.

If Kevin wasn't back by the time his stepsister and stepdad arrived there would be hell to pay. Connor would nag him to death, and as for S.A.R.A.H, well she could be very clever and very sneaky about how she doled out punishments. Sudden icy showers, no clean clothes, missing shoes (usually just one of each pair) were all within her mechanical grasp. If she was really angry, like after the time he and Dre pranked her for Feynman's Day by fooling her sensors into detecting bats flying through the house, she'd lock the refrigerator and food cupboards or vanish his homework assignments. "I'll be here by the time Zoe and Jack get back from the airport. I promise."

"Would you like me to phone you a reminder?"

"S.A.R.A.H! I'm seventeen years old. I can keep track of time."

"There is insufficient evidence to sustain that proposition, Kevin."

Kevin glared at Dre and Sophie. Some posse they were. They were stuffing their shirtsleeves into their mouths to keep from making any noise as they sniggered helplessly at the ridiculous argument he was having with his house. Who often acted more like his overbearing nanny than a mechanical housekeeper, albeit one who had more trouble interpreting facial expressions than analyzing vocal patterns.

"Connor?" S.A.R.A.H. said, her voice more saccharine than usual, "Can I count on you to remind Kevin?"

Connor blushed all the way to his hairline, his fair skin turning a rosy pink. That Zoe was still five years older than them had never mattered to Connor's hopeless infatuation. Zoe made it worse by being kind and tolerant, but honestly, Kevin knew she could and had shot him down a dozen times in a row without it making a dent in his obsession. And clearly, S.A.R.A.H. knew it too, which is why she was enlisting an eager ally. Connor was already nodding like a bobble head, assuring S.A.R.A.H. that he would absolutely see to it that Kevin was home on time. He would make sure of it by delivering Kevin himself. And, no doubt, following him inside to stare hopelessly at the subject of his adoration.

The rest of them exchanged eye rolls, then Kevin led the way across the room, calling "Door!" and they all made their escape to Connor's car. They managed hold their gales of laughter until Connor had driven well beyond the end of the Smarthouse's driveway.

_Friday night, Las Vegas, Nevada_

Catherine held her position, waiting for Steve's hand signal. At the drop, she spun around the corner, her gun raised, and made her way quickly to the next hallway intersection.

The maid's quavering story had led them to a busboy, and then to a parking valet, to a casino dealer, to a floor manager, and finally to a dealer in various and sundry illegal services. She, for she was a she – a tall, slender, black woman with a bleached buzz cut and a suit that probably cost as much as Catherine's entire clothes budget for a year – admitted to putting a third party in touch with local muscle for an inside grab. She also insisted that she had no idea who hired them. Before they were done with her, Catherine was worried she really was going to have to drop Steve to keep him from killing the wrong person. In his mounting panic for Danny, his inclination to beat the information he wanted out of his suspects was very close to getting the better of him. He held it together, if barely.

Then Chin and Kono called with the break they needed. A CI of Kono's had directed them to a warren of grifters and former cons, and eventually to one who admitted to selling information on Danny to a known agent of the same Columbian drug cartel that had ensnared Danny's brother Matt several years earlier. That intel had opened more doors here in Las Vegas, and eventually led them to this office building converted to short-term storage, another casualty of the recession.

The next hallway was clear, and they made it to the office suite without seeing anyone. It was actually quite eerie, Catherine thought, to be so alone in such a large, empty space. Honolulu was too crowded to have places like this, just left abandoned when people no longer wanted them.

The individual offices were all padlocked closed, and Catherine was beginning to worry they'd have to break into each one to be sure, when they heard a faint noise from further down the narrow hallway. A scrape, a scuffling, a thud, and then pounding feet, headed away from them. The office suite had a U-shaped hallway and what sounded like two people were headed for what she guessed was a fire exit on the far side of the U. Steve took off after them, and Catherine went to investigate their starting point. What she found made her heart leap for her throat.

Danny, filthy, naked, and spattered with blood was tied to a chair that had been flipped on its side. He lay unconscious in the middle of an empty office, his head lolling helplessly toward the ground.

She rushed forward, dropping to her knees and nearly sobbed from relief when she felt his pulse, weak but steady under her hand.

During what felt like an interminable wait for the ambulance, and all during the long ride to the hospital, she prayed silently to a childhood God she'd almost forgotten, begging for Danny to be okay. Not just for his own sake, or his family's, or even for Steve. Steve was stronger and healthier than he'd been in a long time, emotionally speaking, thanks largely to Danny. It was her. She needed Danny.

She had never quite been able to tell Steve she loved him, not until Danny accepted Steve's careful, cautious proposition that they all try a third way together. Steve kept himself locked down pretty tight most of the years she'd known him, but the odd cracks she'd seen, now and then, had terrified her. His walls had seemed to her to hide a need for love so vast and deep it had no edge and no bottom. After she learned more of his history, met his fragile sister and his long missing mother, heard tales of his loving but distant father, it just reinforced her fears. The thought of trying to live with all those old wounds had kept her holding him at arms length, never able to just abandon him, never able to go all in either.

But with Danny, it was different. He came barreling in, broke open the walls and let in light, and with him beside her, it turned out not to be so scary or so vast after all. With Danny she could rest her feet and find her balance. She could love Steve without fear of drowning. But, if they lost Danny, she could loose that. And to save herself, she might have to run like hell.

"Please, please, please," she whispered, as the swinging doors closed behind the nurses who had whisked Danny away as soon as they arrived at the Emergency Room, "Please don't let that happen."

_Early Sunday morning, Janesville, California_

In the pale grey light of early dawn Steve clambered inside the shadowed darkness of the back of the van. He seriously regretted not packing a heavier jacket. April in the Pacific Northwest was, in comparison to Hawaii, basically fucking freezing. He came to a crouch alongside Cath, bundled up in almost every light layer he had packed for her, as she fussed with Danny's bedding. At least they had brought enough blankets for him.

Steve dropped his hand on the back of her neck, massaging the corded muscles there. "How's he doing?"

"Not good." She sighed under her breath and leaned back into his hand, "I think his temperature is going up. The infections they talked about setting in. He's also getting dehydrated, which is aggravating the problem."

Steve reached down with his other hand to feel Danny's skin, gently smoothing his hair back from his flushed forehead. It was hot and dry, and he knew they were running out of time.

Danny had been beaten badly. In some ways it was a wonder he'd survived at all. His compact, muscular body was covered in cuts and deep bruises. His wrists and ankles and biceps torn by the ropes that had held him. His shoulder had been dislocated, ribs cracked, a tooth knocked loose, and four fingers broken. He had sustained at least one serious concussion and his windpipe had been compressed enough to bruise and swell. But all that was minor by comparison to the damage that had been inflicted on the soft tissues of his lower back and abdomen. Someone, or some ones most likely, had all-too-literally kicked the shit out of him. His groin and lower back were a mass of purple and green swelling. Internally, his spleen and liver were bruised, his kidneys were slowly failing, but worst was the damage to his intestines, large and small. They were split in multiple places. Too many it turned out for effective surgical repair.

The doctors had done what they could, sewn together everything that they thought they could mend, removed nearly thirty centimeters of small intestine that were too crushed to survive, but the repairs hadn't been enough. Blood and bile were still slowly seeping into his abdominal cavity. The doctors considered removing the entire intestine at that point, but were worried that Danny was too weak for another major surgery right away.

Intestines and kidneys both could be replaced via transplant, they were told, but the problem Danny had was time. His seeping guts were further weakening his already ravaged body. Shaking their heads gravely, the doctors had informed them that even if they did take out everything they could, it might be too late already, too much was failing too fast and shock could set in at any time. Without dramatic improvement soon, morbidity from his condition could be inevitable and painful. Palliative care might be all they could offer.

Which was when Steve thought of Zane Donovan, and the miraculous heart and lungs his friends had built for him inside their hidden, top-secret government labs.

He'd met Zane and his wife Jo nearly a year ago, rock climbing in Hawaii. He had liked the dynamic pair from the start, finding in them kindred spirits when it came to embracing the joy of scaling a vertical rock face. An unexpected case drew them closer, and revealed their considerable professional skills, as hackers, thieves, commandos and demolitions experts. Fortunately, they worked for the DOD. After the case wrapped up, the two of them stayed on with him, finishing out their interrupted vacation as his guests. Over beach barbeque and more rock climbing, their initial, happy encounter grew into a real friendship.

Zane had called on that friendship six months ago, when he and Jo were in a world of trouble and on the run from enemies and allies alike. Steve and the Five-O team had pulled their asses out of the fire on that one, though it had been a near thing, and Zane had been seriously hurt before it was all over. Now it was Steve's turn to reach out for help, and hope that Zane would use his connections to save Danny's life.

As Steve saw it, Eureka owed Steve and Danny and the rest of the Five-O team. Not once, but twice Five-O had been drawn into Eureka business, and put themselves on the line to help Zane and Jo. That had to be worth something, even to people with extraordinary resources shrouded in the deepest security the US government had to offer.

Truthfully, Steve wasn't sure if the help they'd provided Jo and Zane was worth as much as he intended to ask in return, or if it was even something within Zane and Jo's power to give. But he would take any deal they offered if they were willing to help. Because anything was better than just waiting helplessly, watching Danny die by inches.

It had taken him and Cath a few minutes to figure out how to sneak Danny out of the hospital. It had taken them a few precious hours to gather the equipment and supplies they needed to take him to Oregon. Both turned out to be easy in comparison to finding Eureka. He hadn't wanted to contact Zane by phone, afraid that they'd be waved off before help would be offered. He planned to show up in person, betting that Zane would be better able to stand up for them if they were there, on the ground.

Unfortunately, finding Eureka defeated anything and everything Chin and Kono threw at the problem. So, in the end, he had called Doris. She hadn't yet called back.

_Sunday morning, 4020 Coriolis Loop, Zane Donovan and Jo Lupo's House, Eureka, Oregon_

Jo heard the front door open and close, and smiled. Zane was back from his morning run. She rolled over and stretched wide, humming in pleasure at the feel of her muscles loosening and the sheets sliding against her skin. Curling back in on herself, she shook out her hair, adjusted the pillows under her shoulders and smoothed out the bedding. Then she waited for Zane to make his way up the stairs, liquid anticipation coiling low in her belly.

He strolled into their room a few minutes later, finishing off a bottle of water as he came through the doorway. Watching his throat work sent a little rush of want sparkling against her already tender skin. Seeing the last drops of water glistening on his lips before he licked them off drove the ache deeper. She shifted her hips under the blankets, pressing her thighs together as heat started to pool across the tops of her legs.

After tossing aside the empty bottle, he dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed next to her. Close enough she could feel the warmth from his run rising off him. Her palms started to burn.

"Hey," he said, gently shaking her hip. "You wanted me to remind you to get up for church."

The heat from his fingers penetrated despite the layers of bedding. She rolled her hip into the pressure of his hand and nodded gravely. "I did."

"Hmmm." He tilted his head. "You don't look like you're getting up."

She raised her chin. "Pregnant ladies get to change their minds about getting out of bed on Sundays."

"Do they now?" he asked, his lips curving in a slow smile.

"Yes. Yes, they do," she smiled back. His eyes dropped to her mouth. Her heart beat a little faster.

"Did you know," he dragged his gaze from her lips back up to her eyes, "that Reverend Harper blames me for stealing away one of her most faithful parishioners? She's always sending me these sad little reproachful looks."

She did know, actually. Reverend Harper sent her the same reproving little headshake whenever too many weeks had passed since her last appearance at Sunday service. Zane and his atheism were hardly the only reason. Work interfered nearly as often. But Reverend Harper wasn't wrong. Jo managed a mournful sigh. "You are a bad influence."

His expression shifted from feigned remorse to his best, cocky grin. "Yes. Yes, I am."

He was too far away. She sat up and then leaned closer, breathing him in. The scent of his sweat from his run was strong and heady, mingling with the warm cotton of his tee shirt and a faint hint of damp, spring air. She licked up along his neck, savoring the bitter tang of his skin, the rasp of his unshaven beard catching against her tongue. She might have moaned very quietly. "Take off your clothes."

"Joining me in the shower, babe?" His voice was huskier. His long fingers were pressing deeper into her thigh.

She let the sheet fall to her waist to remind him that she was nude. With her lips hovering just next to his mouth, she said, "No. No slippery shower acrobatics today."

Then she kissed him, threading her fingers into his sweat-dampened hair to hold him close. Open and greedy and feeling surprisingly desperate given that he was right there, his mouth hot and demanding on hers. He slid his fingers up her sides, her skin so sensitive she flinched and gasped at the contact. Then he reached her breasts, dragging his thumbs across her already taut nipples. Jagged bursts of pleasure cascaded straight down to her groin.

When he started to pull away, she murmured in protest, holding him near. He relaxed and raised his brows in amused confusion. "No shower at all?"

"I like the way you smell." She dropped her hands and dug her fingers under the edge of his shirt, pulling it up to tug it off.

He huffed with disbelieving laughter as his head and arms came free. "Really?"

She pressed the damp cotton to her cheek and inhaled deeply, shuddering from the strange pleasure of it. "Really. Call it hormones. Pheromones. Whichever. Both. Take off your pants."

He stood, his teeth flashing as he grinned at her, his eyes heavy-lidded with arousal. "If you say so, Jojo."

"I say so."

The rest of his clothes in a heap on the floor, he crawled into their bed. He let her pull him over until he was hovering just above her, his erection teasing the skin of her thickening belly. His shoulders and back were cool and damp under her fingers, muscles bunching and releasing smoothly as he moved. His heavy scent – sweat, early spring air and Zane – filled her senses.

In the sunlight coming through the pale window shades, his eyes were bright blue again and twinkling as he bent his head until his lips were nearly touching hers. "Horny this morning, hmm?"

"So, so horny," she all but groaned. She shifted her hips to raise her knees, catching him between her thighs. She ran her hands across his arms, traced the contours of his chest, down his abs to his waist, pushing him lower. "My skin feels like it's bursting. Everything aches. I want you inside me, pressing me into the bed. Rock my world." Her voice broke, rough and eager, "Please."

He lifted up on his arms, shifting between her legs and angling his hips until the tip of his cock was just brushing against her. And because he was Zane, he caught her eyes and said, "What about Reverend Harper?"

Hooking her heels against his legs, digging her fingers into his flank, she guided him in. Gasping out faint cries of pleasure against his shoulder, using her hands and heels and hips, she pulled him in as deeply as she could, wanting so much more.

"Reverend who?" she breathed into his ear, just before closing her teeth against his jaw.

"Nobody, babe." His words came out on a faint hiss as she wrapped her legs around him. "Nobody."

And then he finally started to move.

_Sunday, mid-morning, twenty miles outside of Lakeview, Oregon_

Steve snatched at his phone, getting it on the second ring. "Mom?"

"Yes. I'm sorry it took so long. How's Danny?"

"Not good, mom."

"Mansfield gave me the coordinates, but he said anything that happens there is up to them and you."

"What do I owe him?"

"Nothing. He still owes you."

"Mom?" The hairs on the back of neck were standing straight up. "What did you do?"

"Nothing you need to worry about right now."

"Mom." He made his voice as stern as he could. Because now, on top of his terror for Danny, he damn well was going to worry about whatever deal Doris had made with Mansfield.

It had no effect, as usual. "Give the phone to Catherine," she said, "I'll tell her where you're going."

"Tell me!" He wasn't even sure if he meant the directions or the nature of the deal she'd just struck.

"You're driving. Give her the phone. She'll tell you everything I tell her, don't worry."

"I'm not worried. And how do you know I'm driving?"

"Mothers are magic, Steven. We just know these things. Give Catherine the phone."

_Sunday, late-morning, Main Street, Eureka, Oregon_

Catherine pointed, keeping her voice low and gentle. "Steve? There's the sheriff's office, next block, on the left. They'll know how to find Jo, don't you think?"

The town was tiny. A few blocks of mostly one-story shops on the main road, a few more scattered commercial buildings on the cross streets, one stoplight. The main blocks had been reduced to a single lane, not quite a mall, to make room for a bit of green space and a large bronze fountain. Not a town square, exactly, but the best approximation they seemed to have.

The houses she could see stretching out from the center were all older, 1950s era, Catherine thought, and looked a bit run down. Or, perhaps, given what little she'd learned from Doris, like their owners were less interested in the state of their lawns than the state of their research.

Steve grunted, but slowed to pull into the curb, parking the van in the handicap access slot closest to the Sheriff's office doors. His face was tight and closed, the muscle in his jaw pulsing with tension. He'd tried to call Zane as soon as they passed a sign that said "Entering Eureka," but their cell phones had gone dead. Between worry for Danny and worry for whatever Doris had traded for the coordinates of Eureka, and now not being able to reach Zane, he was coiled so tightly she was positive she could feel him vibrating.

She was worried too, of course. For Danny. Doris was more than capable of taking care of herself. But Danny was failing too fast. She'd been checking on him every few miles and he was starting to toss in his fever, pulling at his bandages and at the IV, muttering under his breath.

As soon as the engine was off, she said, "I'll stay with Danny. You go see what you can find out."

She watched Steve march into the small building, shoulders squared and ready to do battle for Danny's life. Then she made her way back to the hospital stretcher they'd secured to the floor and walls. She pulled the blankets back up to Danny's shoulders and re-secured the bindings holding the IV tubes in place. Brushing gently at the hair that had fallen against his forehead, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his hot skin.

The sound of the back doors flinging open startled her upright. She turned to find Steve and a pale, dark-haired man in a brown Sherriff's uniform, a deputy's star pinned to his broad chest. The man grinned at her, showing an almost too wide expanse of shiny, even teeth. "Hello, ma'am." He nodded in a welcoming sort of way. "I'm Deputy Andy. I understand you require the assistance of Dr. Donovan and Security Chief Lupo? For your injured friend, here?"

Catherine looked at Steve, who shrugged helplessly, almost comically out of his depth to be confronted by such a throwback of a small town deputy. "Yes," she said, "Can you help us reach them?"

Deputy Andy was looking at Danny, his face and body oddly frozen as his eyes raked up and down Danny's restless form. Then he looked up at her. "I think we will need Dr. Blake and Sheriff Carter as well. This man is quite ill and has extensive injuries. I count three cracked ribs, four broken fingers, and a mass of contusions. A severe beating, I suspect. And he is quite dehydrated. But more concerning are the abdominal issues, the bleeding and the infection. I see his temperature is dangerously elevated, 102.3 degrees Fahrenheit and climbing."

"How can you know all that?"

"Oh," he smiled that oddly too wide smile again, "I'm fully equipped with diagnostic programming, Lieutenant Rollins," he tapped his forehead and winked solemnly at her.

"How do you know my name?" Catherine was aware that she was starting to babble. She was also quite unable to stop.

"Facial recognition software, combined with Commander McGarrett mentioning that you are here from Hawaii. I have heard Chief Lupo speak of you."

All Catherine could manage was another wild exchange of glances with Steve, who was looking as baffled and panicky as she felt. "Excuse me?" she said.

"Oh! I'm sorry! You must not realize." He smiled again. "I'm an AI; robotic law enforcement at your service!"

_Sunday, mid-morning, S.A.R.A.H., 1 Coriolis Loop, Eureka _

"Who?" Jack said into his phone, an incredulous expression on his face. "Who's here?"

Kevin exchanged long-suffering glances with his stepsister and his Mom. Whatever family plans they'd had for the afternoon – a picnic and a trip to the big playground by the lake for the two youngest members of the family, as it happened – were clearly shot. Deputy Andy was incredibly respectful of Carter/Blake family time. Mostly because his girlfriend, their AI-enabled house, would take it out on him if he wasn't. So, if he was calling Jack it was probably a pretty big deal, something Andy felt he really needed Sheriff Carter to handle. And Jack was already moving for the door, looking around for his keys as he listened to whatever Andy was saying.

"What? Allison too?" Jack nodded again, "Okay. We'll be there as soon as we can," and ended the call.

His mom was already on her feet. "What's going on?"

"Do you remember a Steve McGarrett? From all that trouble in Hawaii last fall?" Jack asked.

"Yes. I do."

"He's here. In Eureka." His mom and Jack exchanged a heavy glance, and then Jack added, "With his very badly injured partner. Andy says the man is dying."

As soon as the door closed on their parents, Kevin met Zoe's eyes and almost in unison they flung up their hands. "Whoa!"

"Whoa!" echoed Jenna, trailing them by half a beat. Kevin and Zoe exchanged another glance, this time one full of affection for his four-year-old half-sister.

Catching sight of their fifteen-month old half-brother making a beeline for the fireplace, Kevin scooped him up and held him upside down, making him laugh delightedly. Max was one of the many changes in his life since his mom married Jack. And like Max, most of them were good.

"If I help you get Jenna and Max downtown," the 'so you can gather as much information as possible' unsaid but fully understood, he said, "Can I take off? I'm supposed to meet up with the guys at the lake. Science Fair stuff."

_Sunday, mid-morning, Outside the Sheriff's Office, Main Street, Eureka_

Steve cased the small street again, wondering how much longer they had to wait until someone who knew what they were doing – and he emphatically did not count the robot! –arrived to look at Danny. He had depended on contacting Zane directly, now that they were here, and the unexpected delay was agonizing.

The sun was warm against his skin and he pulled off his top layer with relief. Sunday mid-day activity was clearly picking up. The people he saw were a diverse lot, but most had an uncannily healthy and well-scrubbed air. Pacific Northwest outdoorsiness married to the cheerful geekiness of a computer commercial, maybe.

Much of the foot traffic was headed for the trendy little diner just up the street from the Sheriff's Office. He felt very out-of-place, leaning up against the windowless van in his stained cargos and shapeless polo, the badge at his belt peeking out below the hem of his shirt. Catherine opened the door and slipped out of the back of the vehicle, pushing it almost closed behind her. Her wide-eyed expression as she looked around told him she was having a similar reaction.

Deputy Andy re-appeared around the side of the van. He had vanished inside a few minutes ago, saying he would make some calls. "How are you folks doing?" he asked with another of his slightly off-kilter expressions, this one expressing mild concern. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to step into the office for some coffee?"

Steve really wanted some coffee, but he wasn't leaving Danny alone. Or worse, under the care of a robot who only almost managed to fake human sensibilities. He kept trying to tell himself that standing next to a marvel of scientific and technological engineering should be a reassuring sign for Danny's care. Instead it just kept being freakishly disturbing.

"Thanks, Deputy, but we're good for now," Cath answered for him.

Watching the robot turn his head to track another group of Sunday brunch customers rubber-necking at him and Catherine and the van, Steve suddenly understood. "You don't get many strangers around here, do you."

"No sir!" The robot smiled his eerie smile, while Steve tried and failed, again, not to feel utterly wigged out. He reminded himself to stay focused. They were here for Danny. Nothing else would matter, nothing else could matter, until after Danny got the treatment he needed. Not even walking, talking humanoid robots.

The robot was still talking. "We don't, and that's a fact. Folks are mighty curious as to what brought you to town."

Steve was saved the trouble of making conversation when a Jeep, painted the same brown as Andy's uniform and emblazoned with "Sheriff" pulled in next to the van. A lanky, white man about Steve's height, with sandy brown hair and blue eyes stepped out. He wasn't wearing his uniform today, but he was clearly Sheriff Carter, and he wasn't alone. An elegant, brown haired, brown-eyed woman Steve immediately recognized as Dr. Allison Blake, the surgeon from Eureka who had overseen Zane's heart transplant, climbed out of the passenger side. She walked around the back of the Jeep with a welcoming smile on her lips but worry in her eyes. "Commander McGarrett. Lieutenant Rollins. I understand you've come to us for some assistance?"

Steve nodded, and pulled the back door of the van fully open and gestured inside. "Yes. My partner, Danny Williams. He's," Steve swallowed against the lump of panic in his throat as he saw Danny's flushed skin, "He's in bad shape."

Dr. Blake immediately climbed in and Steve started to follow, when the Sheriff coughed to get his attention. "Commander? Hi. I'm Sheriff Jack Carter."

He held out his hand, and Steve took it, immediately aware that this was the first of the tests they would have to pass to even reach Zane.

"Sheriff." Steve shook his hand. "Pleased to meet you." He nodded at Catherine. "This is Lieutenant Catherine Rollins."

"Lieutenant." Carter shook Cath's hand as well, his amiable expression not masking his sharp-eyed examination of them in the slightest.

Carter's assessment made Steve self-conscious about his rumpled clothes, unshaven cheeks and general air of exhaustion. Catherine didn't look much better. Strain had leached the color out of her pretty face, leaving little but fine bones and worry behind. Her clothes were as travel-stained as his. To his embarrassment, he realized that they looked like what they were: desperate, out of place, and begging for help.

"So." Carter folded his arms and cocked his head. "I'm curious. How did you find us?"

"General Mansfield." It was true. As far as it went.

Carter narrowed his eyes, considering this.

Dr. Blake stuck her head out of the back of the van. "Jack, I've called an ambulance. We need to get Mr. Williams…"

Steve interrupted her, "Detective Williams."

"Detective Williams," Dr. Blake granted Steve a somewhat strained smile along with Danny's title, "to the infirmary."

Steve flushed with embarrassment. He knew he reached for rank and authority when he was stressed, but he had no reason to imagine Dr. Blake ever treating anyone with less than her utmost skill and respect.

Dr. Blake looked to Steve and Cath. "Can you tell me what you know about what happened to him, and his treatment?"

Catherine stepped forward. "I have his charts, from the hospital."

While she and Dr. Blake put their heads together, Steve looked back at Carter. "The General only gave us the location. Everything else is on us."

"I see." Carter pursed his lips and nodded, clearly thinking through several options. Finally, he said, "I think we should wait until Henry and Zane and Jo get here before we discuss what to do about your friend. Why don't the three of us go on inside. Allison and Andy will stay with Detective Williams."

It clearly wasn't so much a request as an order. Steve bristled, preparing to argue when Carter added, in a tone clearly meant to be sympathetic, "You've come a long way for Dr. Blake's help. Let her do her job."

Pulling his command face together, Steve started to bluster, "I'm not comfortable with…"

Carter talked right over him. "You aren't doing anyone any good standing around in the street drawing attention to yourselves, and," his bright blue gaze was shrewd and for a brief instant made Steve think of Danny, "my guess is you wouldn't have the vaguest idea if anything she was doing was helping or harming him."

Steve's first impulse was to challenge Carter's authority, but at the same time he was painfully aware that Carter was right. Blake could kill Danny right in front of him and he would probably never know. He looked to Cath. With a brief, resigned shrug of her shoulders, Cath indicated that she thought they go with the sheriff. Steve looked back to Carter and nodded reluctantly.

Carter, who had watched their interaction with deep interest, collected them with a quiet nod. Entering the station was like being transported to the 1940s. Except for the odd high-tech touches, like computers and phones, it was all heavy dark wood furnishings, WWII era mustard-yellow paint on the walls and venetian blinds on the windows. It even had an actual jail cell with brick walls and metal bars, right out of Mayberry RFD and The Andy Griffith Show.

Carter pointed them to some barely upholstered chairs, then dropped into his own well-padded one, behind his desk. "So," he said, typing into his computer, "McGarrett. One 'r' or two?"

"Two 'r's and two 't's," Steve replied, slouching back in his chair. He couldn't believe that the sheriff seemed to think he was going to find much. Local Oregon law enforcement could have no access to Five-O or Naval records, and the man had to know that.

Carter was still typing, "and, I assume, two 'l's in Rollins?" he looked up at Cath with an inviting smile.

Cath nodded. "Two 'l's, one 'n'," she added with a ready smile of her own.

After a few minutes of clicking around, Carter leaned forward to peer more closely at his screen. "Wow!" he exclaimed, leaning back to look at them with a bright grin. "Next time they shanghai Zane to North Korea, I know who to call!"

Shock jolted Steve forward, and he was sure he must look at least as wild about the eyes as Catherine did. There weren't that many things more highly classified than their last adventure in North Korea. That Carter had waltzed right in to those records was seriously unnerving. It meant he had considerable access to a whole lot of things even Steve couldn't get into easily. It implied, should the authorities in Eureka be interested, that their lives would be mostly an open book to them. He rapidly revised his assessment of what role the sheriff played in security for Eureka.

After waiting to see if they would respond, Carter chuckled gently and said, "So, tell me a bit about your Taskforce." He smiled encouragingly at Steve, but once again, it was perfectly clear that it wasn't an option to refuse. It also strongly reminded him of the way Zane and Jo had tested his story when they first met, what now seemed a lifetime ago.

Steve began his standard, talking-to-the-press spiel. Carter brushed this aside effortlessly and started asking him how they dealt with some of the longer-term threats. "Like this," looking at the screen in front of him, Carter seemed to be running down a list, " 'Wo Fat' business, or internal corruption in the HPD, Governor Jameson, and what was the name, 'Delgado'?"

Flailing away for short answers to impossibly complex questions about some of Five-O's most notorious, challenging cases – and, at least with regard to Wo Fat, an ongoing one – Steve began to have the oddest sensation that this wasn't merely an identity test. It was feeling more and more like a very, very peculiar cross-examination. Only he didn't know who or what he was testifying about or why he was on the stand in the first place.

Carter suddenly grinned. "I was a U.S. Marshall before I was posted here. Fugitive Retrievals."

As this bit of intel illuminated nothing, Steve was quite relieved when a middle-aged, African American couple flung open the doors and rushed into the room. Any diversion was welcome at this point.

They were wearing matching brown work coveralls, stained and faded and well worn, with large patches that read "Henry's Garage" on the breast. He had a wool cap on backwards, covering his hair, but from the lines along the sides of his mouth and around his eyes, Steve suspected it would show plenty of grey. Her glossy black hair was styled in shoulder-length corkscrew curls, temporarily caught up on the top of her head. Her smooth, brown skin was flawless, but she carried herself with the confident bustle that, in Steve's experience, clearly denoted middle-aged woman. Their names, "Henry" and "Grace," were embroidered in red on white patches on their chests. Steve began to wonder if there was some sort of local ordinance insisting that everyone, even garage mechanics, present as unbearably quaint at all times.

"Jack?" the man said, "We came as soon as we heard." He turned to Steve and Catherine, who had risen to meet him, following the sheriff's lead. "Hello," he said, offering them his hand, "I'm Henry Deacon, Director of Rockwell Industries. This is my wife, Dr. Grace Monroe."

"How do you do," Dr. Monroe said, holding out her hand and offering them the first truly welcoming smile they'd seen yet.

After introductions had been completed, and while Steve was once again franticly reorienting himself to make his first impressions line up with new information, Deacon turned to Jack again. "Where are Zane and Jo? They're the ones who know these people." He flashed a brief, charming smile Steve and Cath's way, "no offense."

Steve, wanting desperately to know the same thing, waved this away while Carter scowled. "I don't know." He raised his voice to bellow, "Andy?"

"Yes, boss?" The robot man appeared. "The ambulance has just left with Detective Williams and Dr. Blake."

"What!" Steve started for the door, determined not to let Danny be taken without him, when the Deputy blocked his path. "No can do, Commander. You'll have to wait for clearances to be arranged."

Almost before Steve was aware that he was even considering trying to force his way out, the robot shook his head. "And I wouldn't try that, Commander. My operating system is built on a platform initially designed for fully automated combat, and my jawbone is made from titanium."

Scattered visions of an army filled with eerily grinning robot soldiers marching through their pulverized human foes left Steve fighting to catch his breath. All the while, the robot beamed that crazy smile. "Not to worry! Dr. Blake will take very good care of your friend."

"Right." Carter interjected. "That's why we need Jo. I thought you said you called her?"

Deputy Andy turned to address Carter, all sincere helpfulness once again. "I've been trying boss. I've left several messages for both Chief Lupo and Dr. Donovan. They don't seem to be answering their phones." The robot Deputy tucked his hands around his belt and leaned forward on his toes, a bizarrely salacious gleam appearing in his mechanical eye, "It is Sunday morning. I'm sure they're busy. If you know what I mean."

Carter grimaced with his whole face, hunching his shoulders and frantically waving away the deputy's words. "Ew. Yes. Stop."

Steve sympathized completely with the sheriff. The robot's swift transition from grinning threats to adolescent leering was creepy as hell.

"Well," Deacon coughed, smothering what sounded suspiciously like a laugh, though whether it was directed at the Deputy or the Sheriff's open discomfort was unclear. "Let's go get them up. The sooner we do, the sooner we can see to your friend."

Deacon gestured for Dr. Monroe to precede him out the door. He nodded at them to follow his wife, and this time, worn coveralls notwithstanding, there was no mistaking the authority or command in his tone. "Commander. Lieutenant."

Steve wanted to argue, wanted to fight his way back to Danny's side, but even he could recognize a losing proposition when he had too. He wanted their help, not to be forcibly tossed into the jail cell behind him, and he had no idea where they were keeping Danny.

He had to talk with Zane and Jo. If he couldn't get to them first, at least he could arrive at the same time as Carter and Deacon.

_Sunday, Mid-Day, Main Street, Eureka_

Catherine climbed into the front passenger seat of the Sheriff's jeep, raising her eyebrows in mild amusement at Steve's unexpected flourish of gallantry in holding the door for her. She attributed this sudden attack of chivalry to the astonishing behavior of nearly everyone they'd met so far.

She hadn't known quite what to expect when Steve insisted that bringing Danny here might save his life. But she definitely anticipated something more, well, high-tech. More…'science-y.' Add into that the whole cloak and dagger of even finding the place (along with the sinister warnings from Doris) and she'd also imagined a far more intense military/DOD presence. Instead, after driving through a long expanse of national forest without catching sight of another person, they had arrived in this almost unbearably picturesque little town. It was like a miniaturized sliver of mid-twentieth century America, preserved in amber. The light even seemed faintly golden.

Then, the first person they met claimed to be a robot. A completely human looking, if not quite human-acting, robot. A robot based on a fighting machine. That was definitely high-tech and science-y. Utterly bizarre and disorienting, but science-y. The Sheriff appeared as a contrasting blast of normalcy, and she had nearly flung herself into Dr. Blake's competent arms in relief at the sight of a familiar face. She hadn't, but only because she was really wasn't that kind of girl.

In any case, whatever reprieve she'd felt with Dr. Blake's arrival was completely offset by the cheerful (and, as they learned, entirely too well-informed) sheriff and his obvious distrust of the circumstances that had brought them here. Seemingly without effort, Carter set a blustering Steve back on his heels and then firmly shut down any further attempt on Steve's part to reassert control over their situation. Which had made it clear that Carter, too, was less normal than he initially appeared. Asserting authority over Steve was not an easy thing to do.

Then Carter zipped straight into their complete personnel files, even the most highly classified portions. She'd feared for a moment that Steve would come out of his chair swinging when Carter started in on their time in North Korea. But Carter had a disarming approach. His deft interrogation gave Steve time to pull himself back together. Catherine wondered if Steve noticed how many Carter's questions focused on Five-O's longer, more complex cases, or on his less 'by the book' moments. Carter was looking for something. She just wished she could put her finger on what.

It was one thing to expect you might be viewed as a potential threat, and another entirely to be treated like one. She'd become accustomed to having the bulk of the US Navy behind her, and Hawaii Five-O at her fingertips. Now stripped of those protections she felt wholly exposed in the face of Carter's careful inspection. And if she was off balance as a result, Steve probably felt like he'd been dropped into combat naked.

Despite Carter's easygoing manner and his 1940s-themed office, he had up to the minute intelligence and the skills to use it. The sudden appearance of the director of Rockwell Industries and his wife, both costumed in well-worn garage mechanic coveralls, seemed of a piece with the whole strange place. (A disguise completed by the fact that they had arrived in an actual tow-truck! Reassuringly modern, but for God's sake! Tow-truck!)

Which is when it hit her. Eureka was hiding in plain sight, depending on camouflage to steer accidental visitors on their way. It was a full-on, Cold War era, Potemkin village, complete with shops and cafés and houses. The residents were merely playing parts as quaintly-costumed wacky locals, their real lives and real science carried out somewhere off stage. It was set up to mimic a regular town while hiding the reality of the research and development being carried on someplace…else. Underground? Further up in the hills? Were some buildings merely a façade for labs and offices? She had no idea, but now she was extremely curious to find out what other secrets Eureka was concealing.

The drive was very short, barely a handful of blocks, and Carter was pulling up to the curb in front of an attractive, Craftsman-style house. Though the style was old, Catherine was sure the house was fairly new. The deep green paint was still bright, and the landscaping hadn't yet gotten over-grown or ripped out, as it had with so many of the other houses they'd passed on their way into town. New, built to look old. Her nerves began to buzz, the way they did when all the pieces of an intelligence puzzle started to fall into place. Even Danny's dire circumstances couldn't quite squash the sense of exhilaration that came with knowing she was on the right track.

They trooped after Carter up to the low porch, Steve at her side, Deacon and Dr. Monroe following hard on their heels. Carter immediately started leaning on the buzzer and banging the knocker, shouting through the glass along side the door, "Jo! Zane!"

When approximately fifteen seconds of this produced no response, Carter stepped over to the right to bring his eye level with the buzzer. Catherine allowed herself the tinniest smirk of triumph as the telltale lights of a retinal ID scan flashed.

She looked at Steve and raised her brows meaningfully. He shrugged, too focused on reaching Zane to care about the significance of Jo's home security system.

Then the door popped open.

"Are you serious?" Deacon gasped, clearly incredulous. "Jo put you on her house security?"

Carter straightened up, pushing at the door and leading the way inside. "Zane did, two weeks ago when he flew out to Boston to see his mom. He wanted someone else to be able to get in."

"Does Jo know?" Dr. Monroe asked, amazement and warning mixing with amusement in her voice.

"She's about to." Carter marched across the small foyer to the base of the uncarpeted stairs, completely at his ease in invading his friends' home, and bellowed, "Zane! Jo! Wake up! Get your lazy butts out of bed! Don't make me come up there!"

As they waited for some response to this extraordinary greeting, Catherine looked around, trying to gather as much information as she could. An idiosyncratic art collection and warm colors held together an eclectic mix of modern and more traditional furnishings. Journals and books and odds and ends of mysterious, disassembled electronics were scattered about. It was exactly what it should have been, she decided. Despite the retinal scan at the door, this was where they really lived.

It was only with that thought that she realized she had been harboring any doubts about where the sheriff had been taking them.

"Zane! Jo!" Carter was still yelling up the stairs. If he was at all worried about Jo's reaction to him being able to get into her house, he wasn't showing it.

Finally there were the sounds of movement on the floor above, and then Zane's irate shout, "Carter? What the hell?"

At the sound of Zane's voice, Catherine felt as much as saw Steve gather himself. He shifted, she hoped unconsciously, into a ready-fighting stance, hands at his sides, knees loose, his weight forward on the balls of his feet. They had gambled everything on Zane's reaction to finding them here. There was no Plan B.

A few seconds later, Zane staggered down the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister for balance. He was clad only in low slung track pants – attire that revealed he was as devoted as ever to his workout routine. His short, dark hair was swirled and matted, poking up in every direction. He was blinking owlishly and shaking his head in an obvious effort to wake up.

Catherine stared in fascination at his naked torso. Barely six months ago he'd had his chest cracked open and his heart, lungs and a handful of ribs replaced after getting slammed by the debris from a rocket launcher attack. She visited the wards at Tripler Army Medical Center often enough, chatting with the wounded and recovering soldiers and sailors there, to know that his surgical scars should still have been shockingly visible against the winter-pale skin of his chest – long, bright reddish-purple and angry looking.

Instead there was only the faintest of thin white lines running vertically above his sternum, just visible if you knew to look for it. His shoulders, chest and abs were their usual well-defined selves and it looked like he was able to lift as much as ever. If anything, eying his obliques with interest, Catherine thought he was slightly more cut than when she'd met him the year before. It was probably his reaction to that near-death experience, but still, it was an amazing, out of this world recovery. Her hopes for Danny began to mount at a dizzying speed. _This_ was the science they had risked everything to find.

Zane was still stomping down to them, snarling, "My hand to your God, Carter, RI better be burning down to the fucking ground!" when he finally caught sight of Catherine and Steve. He stopped moving on the bottom step, his eyes widening and mouth dropping open in surprise. "Oh! Wow. Steve? Cath? What the frak are you doing here?"

Steve surged forward. "It's Danny. He's dying. I want you to save him. Like Dr. Blake saved you."

Zane stared unmoving for a beat, his mouth still hanging open. Then he snapped his jaw closed and shook his head again, as though he were trying to force his brain to process information faster. Narrowing his eyes, he said, "Saved me? Like, as in, printed organs?"

"Yes. Exactly. Danny needs kidneys. And intestines." Steve's expression turned pleading. "Can you help? Please?"

Zane's frown deepened, his normally bright, open gaze gone muddy and dark. He flicked his eyes toward Henry Deacon and Grace Monroe, and then over to Carter. Back and forth, an unspoken conversation passed between them. It ended with shrugs and significant nods aimed at Zane. It was his call, and given his scowl, he wasn't happy about it.

A chill of foreboding curled around her spine and Catherine's swell of optimism crested and broke.

After what seemed an endless time, but was probably less than a minute all together, his face smoothed out and he looked back at Steve. "Yes."

It felt to Catherine as though everyone in the small, crowded foyer let go the breath they had been holding. Steve rocked back onto his heels. Carter's shoulders relaxed. Deacon and Dr. Monroe moved closer together, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder.

Over the rushing in her ears she barely heard Zane add, "We can try, anyway. Where is he now?"

At least he hadn't said no. Catherine gathered what comfort she could from that.

"Dr. Blake took him to the infirmary?" Steve made it a question. Catherine assumed he did so because neither of them had the faintest idea where that was. It was definitely unnerving not to be sure of Danny's whereabouts and safety, no matter how much they trusted in Dr. Blake.

Zane nodded. "Good. If Allison has him up at RI, she'll do an initial assessment and get back to us. While she's doing that, I need coffee. And food." He looked sharply at them again and added, "So do you. Follow me."

_Mid Day Sunday, Main Street, Eureka_

Kevin pulled the stroller from the back of his mom's SUV and popped it open, just in time for Zoe to drop a wiggling Max into his seat and strap him down. Jenna, who at four and a half was an entirely too mobile a kid as far as Kevin was concerned, let herself out of her safety harness and climbed through the backseat to slide out of the car next to the stroller.

"Café Diem?" he said to his sisters.

"Café Diem," Zoe and Jenna echoed, and the three of them bumped fists and started off, Zoe pushing the stroller and Kevin holding Jenna's hand.

Along the way, Zoe asked him questions about his science fair project, and he gave vague answers. Which she picked up on immediately of course. Zoe had almost Jack-like antennae for detecting falsehoods or evasions. So he said, "Look, I'd like to surprise everyone, and I hate listening to mom and dad give 'helpful' advice."

"Fair enough," Zoe laughed. "Me too." She bumped his arm with her shoulder. He was a LOT taller than Zoe was now. "Of course–"

He interrupted her, already knowing from the tone of her voice what she was going to say. "Yeah, yeah, I know. They're right freakishly often. Still. I'd rather screw up on my own. You know?"

Zoe rolled her eyes in understanding and nodded. "Yeah. I do know. Which is why I used to ask Zane for help on my science projects instead."

"Henry's been stalking him to judge this year, so he's being all responsible and shit. No accidental sketches on napkins, no dropped equations, nothing."

"Aww. Our little boy is growing up. Doesn't it make you feel proud?!"

"Domesticated." He curled his lip and shook his head sadly. "Another one." Kevin sighed hugely. "I swear Zo, I'm gonna wait until I'm really old before I have any babies."

"Zane is thirty-three, Kev! It's not like he's auditioning for 'teen dads'."

"Yeah, but look at Uncle Marcus! He's like, at least forty-five or something. No kids. Hot car. Great job."

"No steady partner, empty house, boring hobbies."

"True." Kevin shuddered. "Golf."

"Besides. I doubt Zane will ever quit being Zane. Didn't he and Parish just prank Ramsey's lab for Feynman Day, had the whole place booby trapped for gross body noises?"

"Yeah!" Kevin laughed. "That was pretty awesome! He was so mad, him and Parrish both when Dr. Ramsey turned Parrish's limacoids pink for Valentines Day. They just had to get even." Kevin started to giggle again, just remembering it. Zane and Parrish's payback was effective but crude. Ramsey's prank had been fantastic. "Pink banana slugs. They were hideous."

_Mid-Day Sunday, 4020 Coriolis Loop, Jo and Zane's Kitchen_

After showering quickly and pulling on jeans and a loose top, Jo followed the sound of voices into her kitchen. It turned out to be amazingly full of people. Zane and Carter, whom she expected to find. Henry and Grace, whose presence failed to surprise. And, she stared in shock, Steve McGarrett and Catherine Rollins? "What the hell?" she said aloud.

Zane looked up from the stove. Still shirtless and barefoot, with his unruly hair sticking up at odd angles, she thought he looked altogether marvelous. If no one had been around she would have dragged him right back upstairs, or maybe just as far as the couch in the next room. Pregnancy was sending her already high libido straight into overdrive. Zane had been more than happy to be along for the ride.

However, their kitchen was full of people, and he was prepping what looked, and, ugh, oh yes, seeing the bright yellow liquid hit the hot pan, smelled like eggs.

"Yeah!" he said. "Shocked the hell out of me too. They need help for Danny. Allison's got him now." He nodded toward the counter by the sink. "Coffee should be about ready, and one of Vincent's smoothies is in the fridge."

Jo turned to Steve and Cath, and smiled warily. "Hey."

They looked pretty frightful, now that she was really focusing on them. Travel worn, unwashed, and pale under their tans, with deep lines of tension etched around their eyes and lips. Standing close together, nearly but not quite backed into a corner, they seemed, almost, vulnerable? That was disorienting enough in two such aggressively competent people, but they also seemed braced for some terrible thing. She frowned. "You guys look horrible. What happened to Danny?"

"Now that you are _finally_ here," Carter exclaimed, his exasperated demeanor completely uncalled for in Jo's opinion, given that he was the one who had stormed into her house on a quiet Sunday. And, at some point in the not too distant future, they would definitely be discussing how the hell he got past the front lock. Jack, oblivious, was still talking, "We can all hear the answer to that very good question!" He turned to Steve and Cath. "What did happen to Detective Williams?"

It was a good question. So were several others, Jo thought. Like, how on earth did Steve and Cath even find Eureka and how bad was the security breach? How carefully had they covered their tracks? What steps would she need to take to scrub what they missed? And now that they were here, could RI help them? Should they help? If they did help, what would the consequences be?

"No! Coffee first!" Zane insisted.

Shooting a quick glance his way, Jo frowned again. His eyes were hooded and she could see his tongue running along the edge of his lips, a sure sign of intense concentration. After watching him stir the eggs too fast for them to cook, she looked back at her unexpected guests. Steve and Cath shouldn't be in Eureka, looking like they'd been rolled in a back alley somewhere. They shouldn't be in Eureka at all, even if it were a life or death matter. She looked back to Zane's abstracted expression, and then at Steve and Cath again. Oh shit. It must be life or death. Danny's life or death.

Well. Damn. That certainly raised the stakes dangerously all around. She gave herself a mental shake. Danny was dying or close to it, and they wouldn't let him do that, not without trying everything they could to save him first. But. So many security problems now. Shit, shit, shit.

If Allison had Danny, she would call as soon as she had something to tell them. In the meantime, prepping breakfast would gain Zane some time to work on whatever had him thinking so furiously. She hoped. She turned to the cupboard for mugs, already making a list in her head of all the perimeter sensors and satellite images she needed to assess so she could begin the clean up of Cath and Steve's trail, not to mention discovering how they found the coordinates in the first place and plugging that hole permanently.

Grace stepped up to help, fishing out the cream and sugar, passing full cups to Steve and Cath. From their nearly white knuckled grips to their closed eyes as they sucked down the smell, seeming to revive from that alone as their bodies reacted in anticipation to the caffeine hit down the road, Jo gathered it had been a very long few days for them.

Carrying a mug to Zane, she pressed a kiss against his bare shoulder, then stepped back, wrinkling her nose. Bad as the eggs smelled, he smelled worse. "Eww. I'll finish the eggs. You go shower."

"Now you want me to shower?" he raised his brows, but his blue eyes were warm and laughing as he looked down at her.

"Yes," she bumped him aside with her hip. Fresh sweat and stale sweat were totally different things. And he was going to ruin the eggs if she didn't take over. He could think in the shower as easily as at the stove. More easily. "Go."

"No. Wait! We've all just finally got here!" Carter cried.

Jo nailed him with a warning glare. "Speaking of 'here,' Carter, just exactly how did you all manage to get into my house?"

Zane stepped back from the stove, took his coffee and headed for the stairs. He fist-bumped Carter on the shoulder, hard if Jack's rocking backward was any indication, as he passed. "Scary pregnant lady is all yours. Carter. I'm taking a shower."

"Carter?" Jo growled. She would deal with Zane later, not being fooled for one second by his compliant behavior, or his not-very-masked assault on Jack.

"Oh, well, that," Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and tried out his bashful, distract-the-ladies grin, "that's not really important right now is it?"

"What did you do?"

"Eggs, Jo! Watch the eggs!"

Jo swore and turned back to the stove in time to save breakfast.

_Café Diem, Main Street, Eureka_

"Just the four of you?" Vincent asked, once he'd finally wriggled his stout form through the busy Sunday Bruch crowd.

"Three, Vince," Kevin replied, "And a lunch to go. I'm meeting the guys." He looked down at Jenna who was tugging on his hand and squeaking something he hadn't really been paying attention to. "Yes, Jenna, stop. You can go play with Karen and Vijay." He let go of her hand and she slipped through the crowd, headed for a cluster of other kids from her class who were playing with the toys Vincent kept by the couches.

"Hmm. Okay." Vincent cast his glance across his domain, spotted his target and ushered them through. As he pulled out Zoe's chair and waved over a server with a highchair for Max, he said, "So. Do you two know anything about the dark, handsome stranger in the silver van?"

"Only a name," Zoe said. "Steve McGarrett. From Hawaii."

"What did you see?" Kevin asked.

"Me? I've been working," Vincent shot Kevin a reproving glance, then broke and grinned. "But, what I heard, is that he and a woman arrived with an injured man in the back of the van. Then, after your mom got here, Kevin, she called an ambulance and took the injured man off to RI. Tall, dark and handsome and the woman left with the sheriff, with Henry and Grace following. Hong Lee said their cars are parked outside of Jo and Zane's."

Kevin grinned at Zoe. For a town full of high tech stuff, Vincent's old-fashioned informant network was still often the fastest and best source of news in Eureka. Vincent swiped at the already clean table with his towel, mostly so he could get his head down Kevin knew, and whispered, "Naomi Zuckerman said Deputy Andy said the injured man is so badly hurt he could die!"

Vincent straightened up and raised his eyebrows, obviously waiting for their news. Kevin looked at Zoe, who shrugged and tossed her hair, more brown than blond these days. Smiling winsomely up at Vincent, she said, "Well, I've never heard Andy lie. How about you?"

Vincent smirked, pleased for the verification. Still sort of whispering, he asked, "Do either you know what went down in Hawaii last fall?"

"Only that Jo and Zane took off in, like, the dark of the night with Mansfield, all super hush-hush, then, like a week later or more, Jo called Mom late in the evening and we didn't see her again for days," Kevin sort of whispered back.

"It was Zane," Zoe offered, also sort of whispering, as suited the not quite clandestine nature of their conversation. "He was in some kind of wicked accident. Allison flew out for his surgeries. I think this McGarrett guy was part of it all somehow."

"Yeah. I remember. Zane was pretty beat up looking when they got back, and seemed slow to recover fully. Surgeries, hmm?" Vincent frowned, tapping at his lips. "I wish I had a better idea what they got up to while they were out there. Lupo, now, well I can totally believe Mansfield would tap her for some sort of special ops mission. But Zane?"

"Some kind of computer gig, that's my guess." Kevin offered, hoping to further encourage Vincent's curiosity, shaking the tree and all that, just to see what might fall out.

"But how does this McGarrett fellow, the woman, and the dying man fit into whatever it was?" Vincent's eyes narrowed in thought. After a few seconds, he shrugged, laughed, and took their orders.

_Sunday, Mid-Day, 4020 Coriolis Loop, Jo and Zane's Kitchen_

Catherine tried a tentative sip at her coffee, but it was still too hot, so she inhaled another lungful of the rich, deep aroma and felt her brain sparking from that alone. Sparking enough that she managed to finish processing Zane's exit line. She set down her mug and exclaimed, "Pregnant? Jo? You're pregnant? How awesome is that!"

Jo looked up from the pan, her concentration split between the cooking and Catherine.

To Catherine's eyes, Jo didn't look much different than she had six months ago; still trim and fit, her long, dark hair still flowing down her back in heavy waves, olive skin healthy and glowing against the snowy white of her top, large dark eyes bright and shiny. But, maybe, now that Catherine was looking hard, her breasts and hips were a bit fuller, and the pretty, blousy tunic wasn't blousy about the middle only because of how it was cut? Maybe?

"Yeah!" Jo was beaming happily, "I am. About sixteen weeks now. Due sometime after Labor Day." She turned off the gas and lifted the pan, then looked around in confusion. "Did he get out a plate?"

"Here!" Dr. Monroe produced a large bowl, and then began handing out tasks to her husband and the Sheriff. From her directions about silverware and napkins to the location of the breadbox, it dawned on Catherine that Grace Monroe was intimately familiar with the way Jo had laid out her kitchen.

In fact, once she noticed that, it was obvious that the vibe between these people was one of family as well as friends and colleagues. As soon as she recast Carter as somewhere between big brother and father-surrogate, his interactions with Zane and Jo went from inexplicable to charming. Dr. Deacon was the eccentric, wealthy uncle with the talented wife, Jo the sister/daughter/niece they all adored and Zane their prodigy.

Which meant Dr. Blake was, what? Sister? Sister-in-law? Cousin? The metaphor was breaking down. In any case, none of them seemed overly concerned about Danny just at the moment. She would take that to mean that she and Steve could focus on convincing them to work miracles on his behalf.

Miracles that might be harder to secure than they had hoped. It didn't take a genius to spot Zane's massive deflecting while he was fussing with his breakfast, deep lines etched between his brows and his attention mostly elsewhere. There was something they didn't know, and Zane wasn't ready to tell them. It had every sign of being unpleasant news.

So she crossed the kitchen in quick strides, crying "Congratulations!" and wrapped Jo in a strong hug, frantically signaling Steve with her eyes to do the same.

Jo returned their embraces with every sign of genuine pleasure, but as soon as she disentangled herself, she said, "I really have to go make some quick calls. Grace? Can you take over?"

Catherine tried to keep alarm out of her face when Carter followed Jo out of the room, but had the strong sense that she was no more successful than Steve. His lips were drawn flat and thin and his eyes were full of apprehension.

Jo was as good as her word, and she and Carter returned shortly, with what Catherine truly hoped was faint relief in their expressions.

Zane reappeared not long after they sat down at the neatly laid table, full plates for herself, Steve and Zane, a vile looking smoothie for Jo and more coffee all around. Catherine hoped and feared Jo's drink was some pre-natal concoction of awfulness. Steve, assuming he noted it, probably approved.

Hair wet and in a clean Henley and jeans, Zane dropped into the empty chair beside Jo and leaned in to kiss her. "Better?'

Jo bent her neck and breathed deeply. She caught his eye and grinned, then kissed him again. "Yes. Much."

"Would you two cut that out, please?" Carter said, with the air of one long-suffering from the oppression of other people's silliness. "You spent the whole morning in bed, isn't that enough for one day?"

Jo not only ignored him, she leaned over and kissed Zane a third time, with a deliberately loud smack.

Zane grinned wickedly at her, then picked up his fork and looked at Carter. "First, no. Not necessarily enough for one day. Second, I did not spend the whole morning in bed, just the best parts." He winked at Jo.

"Oh, would you grow up and join the rest of the adults?"

Catherine sympathized with Carter's exasperation. Her back and shoulders were aching from strain.

But she really thought that he should know better.

She'd worked two cases with Zane. Enough to know that he was highly skilled and thoroughly professional when the situation demanded it, despite his tastes for juvenile humor and flirting with his wife. He was focused, inventive, adaptable, selfless even. He was also completely dedicated to achieving his goal by any means necessary, whether rescuing a kidnapped colleague, destroying evidence, or carrying classified material half way around the world.

So she knew, from experience, that throwing any shade at Jo or his relationship with her never, ever produced a useful result.

"I am an adult!" Zane declared. "A responsible member of the community even. I'll have you know I'm going to be a judge at the science fair this week."

"What! Henry!" Carter turned on Deacon, a horrified expression on his face, "Why are you letting him loose in there! Do you remember the last time?"

Yay. Catherine sighed to herself. Digression complete. Way to go Sheriff Carter! She heard an audible sigh to her left, and looked over in time to catch Steve's frustrated side-eye. She dropped her hand to his thigh, an expression of support and a reminder to stay in his chair. Zane's house, Zane's move. And he was the only one to fully have their back so far.

"Hey," Zane objected between mouthfuls, "I was an advisor, not a judge. Totally different thing. Ask Henry if you don't believe me."

"It's time, Jack," Henry said. "Zane can't duck his community responsibilities as a department head forever. And I trust him to be a fair and impartial judge. More important, so will the kids."

"You helped Lucas's little brother tweak his experiment so much that it blew out the south wall of the gym!" Carter exclaimed, waving his hands in outrage. He turned to Deacon again, "Blew. Up. The gym!"

Zane cackled in merriment. "That was freaking awesome, wasn't it! And it wasn't the whole wall – just a small piece." He looked at Steve and said, "Model rail gun."

Steve nodded, a politely impressed expression on his face, impatience in his eyes. "Nice."

Zane caught Catherine staring aghast at him, and offered up his most appealing grin. "No structural damage to speak of."

That wrung an involuntary snort of laughter from her despite everything. This Zane was the same Zane she had known before. Still obsessed with his wife. Still irrepressibly charming. Even when describing helping teenagers build a working model of a gun normally mounted on a battleship. (A battleship!) The Zane she was counting on to step up and save Danny.

The sheriff glowered at him, "You have no self control at all, do you?"

Zane narrowed his eyes right back at him. He drawled, "I have freaking fantastic self-control." He turned to Jo, "Isn't that right, Jojo?"

"Oh my God!" Jo exclaimed, turning to glare at him, caught him gazing heatedly at her, and visibly melted, her outrage shifting to a brilliant smile. "Yes. You do." She turned to the rest of them. "He does. He really does."

Zane started snickering again. Dr. Monroe exclaimed "Jo!" in a tone of faux embarrassment, before breaking into a peal of merry laughter of her own. Carter pushed back his chair and made to stand up. "That's it. I'm getting out the spray bottle."

Catherine began to wonder when the Queen of Hearts would appear, and whose head she would threaten to cut off.

_Infirmary, Rockwell Industries, Eureka, Oregon_

Danny struggled to open his eyes, but every time he got them moving upwards his eyelids just seemed determined to fall shut again. The sounds he could hear were all wrong, and he really wanted to know where he was. And his whole body hurt, the dull joint ache of a fever, the soreness in his shoulder and chest, the sharper pains in his fingers, and the great, heavy, hot hurt in his belly and his back.

Maybe he would just groan, but leave his eyes closed.

This brought footsteps and then cool fingers brushing at his forehead.

A low, female voice he didn't recognize said, "Detective Williams?"

"Hmm mmph," was the most he could manage.

With a heroic effort, he finally wrenched his eyes open. The woman leaning over him had nice, warm brown eyes, and a pretty smile. "Hi," he said. Or mumbled.

"Glad to see you again." She smiled again. "I'm Dr. Allison Blake. We met last fall, in Honolulu. Do you remember?"

"Mmhm." He remembered her now. God, he was so groggy. And he had a terrible case of cottonmouth. "Zane. Heart thing."

"Yes." The fingers on his forehead felt more professional now. "Your partners Commander McGarrett and Lieutenant Rollins brought you to Eureka. Do you remember how you got injured?"

"Beat up. Bad. Matty. Columbians." Danny felt sleepy again. But, he cracked his eyelids. "Van? I rode in a van?"

"Yes."

She held out a cup with a straw and he sucked at it greedily, only to have her take it away before he'd had his fill. He blinked, trying to focus on the room. "Was I in a different hospital? It looks different here."

"Yes. You were treated initially at a hospital in Las Vegas. But Commander McGarrett thought we might be able to do a better job."

Danny's eyes closed and he decided to just let them rest for a second. "Steve. Steve and Catherine. They take care of me."

"Yes."

He got his eyelids up a fraction and tried to peer around the pretty doctor. "Are they here?"

"They will be in a little while. Go back to sleep, Danny. They'll be here when you wake up again."

Danny let his eyes stay closed with relief. "Okay."

_Sunday Mid–Day, Zane and Jo's Kitchen _

Carter had barely made it to his feet when Zane turned to look at Steve and Catherine. Completely dropping his flirtatious demeanor, now he was all business. "So. What happened to Danny?"

"ARrrggh," cried Carter, throwing up his hands and sinking back into his chair.

Steve glanced around the table, and even though Zane had asked him the question, he let his gaze come to rest on Deacon. Director Deacon, who watched everything carefully and, so far, had said very little, and addressed almost none of what he did say to Steve or Cath. Instead he listened quietly to his wife and the sheriff while Zane had been focused on food and coffee.

Steve couldn't remember Zane being such a dick about having his breakfast before. On the other hand, he'd never accompanied anyone breaking into Zane's house and waking him up from a very sound, post-sex sleep before either. Fortunately. While it might have been vaguely disguised as a friendly shoulder tap, Zane had slugged the sheriff pretty damn hard on his way past him. He'd seen the sheriff furtively shaking it out and rubbing the sore spot when Jo's back was turned, an entire wordless conversation passing between him and Deacon and Monroe, which seemed to boil down to some version of 'serves you right.' Retaliation, pure and simple. At least now Zane was showered, fed, and his usual, cheerfully-lecherous, Jo-focused self. And, finally, allowing everyone to turn their attention to Steve, and to Danny.

Steve set down his empty coffee mug; he'd already inhaled his food.

He spoke directly to Deacon, trying hard to see through the mechanic get up to the scientist beneath, but the whole unsettling nature of Eureka was getting under his skin. Robots. Costumes. Stage sets. Oversexed scientists who liked blowing things up. He wanted to yell at them all to grow the fuck up and pay attention to the real world. To pay attention to Danny. He said, "We need your help. Danny is dying. He needs new kidneys and new intestines."

Catherine reached over and rested her fingers against his forearm. "Yes. Please. You're Danny's last chance." She also spoke to Deacon, but took in the whole company at the end, including each one in her gaze.

"Why don't you tell us a little bit about what happened, and how you got here," Deacon said. His voice was kind, but his eyes were cool and evaluating.

Steve had the strongest feeling that now would be a very, very bad time to lie. Whatever his feelings about Eureka, this was their town and their rules. He couldn't demand their help. He could only hope they would be willing to back Zane in offering it. He just wished he had more information about what might tip the scales in their favor. All they had to go on so far was Cath's insight that these people seemed to operate more like a family than anything else. Okay. A family of choice he understood. He could work with that.

Choosing his words carefully, he told them of their race to find Danny, their horror at finding him so badly injured, the devastating news at the hospital in Las Vegas, his determination that maybe someone in Eureka could save him the way they had saved Zane, their long drive through the night to get him here. He stressed that Danny had been kidnapped away from his only daughter. That his own mother had reached out to Mansfield for them. With his fingers laced through Catherine's, he acknowledged the relationship he and Cath and Danny shared together. He didn't quite choke up, but even he could hear his voice getting thick as he described Danny's condition, and asked again for their help.

Catherine, her grip warm and firm, filled in his gaps with information from Danny's treatment at the hospital. She'd spent more time reading his charts than Steve had, and more time sitting with him as they drove through the night.

It was pretty easy to see from the glances his listeners exchanged as he spoke that they were quite aware that he and Catherine had left out a good deal of information. They appeared to be willing to let that slide, at least for the present.

Once he was finished, a short silence fell.

Jo spoke up first. "Henry?" she asked, "Is it even possible, given the nature of Danny's injuries?"

Deacon looked down at his empty mug, then back up at the assembled group. "I spoke with Allison on the way over. She confirmed that Detective Williams is in very bad shape right now. His injures will probably kill him if they can't be treated."

"And?" Dr. Monroe said.

"Or," Jack pursed his lips, "am I hearing a 'but'?"

"She's not sure yet what the best options are."

"We can fabricate kidneys, that's not an issue. It's the…" Zane trailed off uneasily after looking at Steve and Cath.

"Yes," Deacon nodded, "the intestines."

Zane looked apologetic as he addressed Cath and Steve directly, "It's a technical problem, mostly. The bio-chemistry of the guts are way more complicated than the cell structure of hearts, and the structure itself is, well, difficult."

"But," Jo objected, "I know you've printed whole," she stuttered briefly and Steve wondered what she had started to say, "systems, before. Why is printing the guts alone different?"

"Yeah! That!" Jack waved his finger at her.

"When you print an entire system," Deacon said, "you have something to support the intestines while they are being built. Stand alone appears to be different for softer tissues."

"And no," Zane shook his head in obvious frustration, "We haven't figured out why, or what to do about it."

Answering the question before anyone could ask it, Dr. Monroe added, "We can't afford to produce the kind of by-product we'd end up with by fabricating more than just the parts we need. We don't have the resources. And," she looked at Steve and Cath and smiled sympathetically, but regretfully all the same, "it crosses a lot of ethical boundaries."

"So, then," said Jo, "if you can't build new guts, you have to repair his current ones, right?"

"Yeah. That's really the only other option right now," Zane replied. "Unfortunately, the first attempt at surgical repair seems to have failed. The next step normally would be to remove everything, colon, small intestine, maybe even the spleen. Unfortunately that would mean putting Danny on total parenteral nutrition." He nodded at Carter, "Feeding tubes. After that, hope for a conventional transplant before his major arteries can't take the feeding tubes any longer or his liver fails. It's slow, debilitating, and the five year survival rates are still hovering around fifty percent."

"You just know this?" Carter exclaimed.

Zane laughed lightly. "No. Dude. I talked to Allison while I was upstairs, ran a search while I was in the shower." He shrugged. "Anyway, it sounds like the surgeons in Vegas didn't think Danny could take even that."

"So if the biggest problem right now is the leaking, could you use glue to seal the tears instead of sutures? Or wrap the intestines with something? While they heal themselves? Like we do here with cuts or burns?" Jo asked.

"If we had anything to use, but, as far as I know," Zane looked at Deacon, "nobody has developed anything like that for internal use?"

"No." Deacon shook his head. "They haven't."

The Sheriff looked around the table, "How about those nanomite bugs? Don't you have some version of your construction mites for this? Like Allison is adapting for cancer treatments?"

Zane shook his head, "Nanites. And no. They aren't the same, and anyway the building mites have to have material to work with, and," he looked at Steve, his expression full of apology, "Danny's problem is that he doesn't have enough healthy material right now."

"Well," Jo frowned in concentration, "What about that skin layer thingy you all used on Jack, when he got infected from Zoe's car? Wasn't it super thin? And it just sank right into Jack's skin once it was done. Could that work as an internal bandage?"

"Yeah," Carter nodded enthusiastically. "That stuff was amazing, and absorbed almost instantly once it worked. Never had any complications from it either. Yet." He tapped the table surreptitiously, and shrugged, eyes laughing, when he saw Steve watching him.

"Maybe too fast," Deacon frowned, obviously thinking rapidly, "but maybe…" he fished a small notebook and a pen out of his pockets and began jotting something.

"Jack? Henry? What skin thingy?" Dr. Monroe asked, looking back and forth between Carter and Deacon, appearing both baffled and fascinated.

"Infected from Zoe's car? What the hell?" Zane sounded equally out of the loop.

Steve began to feel dizzy, watching the conversation as it darted around the table. It was like an old pong game, and he was having a lot of trouble keeping his eye on the bouncing dot.

Deacon's head snapped up and he cleared his throat, back in charge once more. "Before your time, Zane, and there's nothing like that now. The researcher is no longer here. Got redacted too early on. Which is too bad, because Fargo helped in the later design stages. But," and his warm smile took in both Jo and Carter, "that's a really good idea."

"What was it, exactly?" Zane asked.

"A synthetic organic polymer, built to mimic skin cells, produced originally to promote healing after burns."

Dr. Monroe's forehead creased in concentration. "So, like, a tissue-based nylon or polyvinyl?"

"More like neoprene. Only very thin. And self-repairing. The potential commercial application turned out to be protecting cars from nicks and dings."

Zane was on his feet, "Could we reverse engineer it? If you or Fargo remember the specs well enough I could probably build the fabricator…" he left the room, brows twisted in thought.

Carter, Deacon and Dr. Monroe also stood up, Deacon back to looking at his notebook as he and Carter fielded questions from his wife.

Steve looked to Jo. "What's going on? Can they help? Will they help?"

"I don't know," Jo replied, but Steve couldn't tell which question she was answering. She went over to join the group around Deacon.

_Early Afternoon Sunday, Lake Archimedes, Just outside Eureka, Oregon_

"Like this," Kevin snapped the conduits together and nodded at Dre, who followed suit with the other pair. He looked up at Tim, "Ready?"

"Ready as we can be," Tim answered, his thin face crinkling up as he grinned encouragingly, his mirrored sunglasses winking in the sun over his scraggly brown beard.

"You really think this will work?" Connor asked.

"I do," Tim nodded firmly, "You kids have done a great job!"

"Okay," Kevin didn't look at Sophie so he wouldn't see her roll her eyes. Tim was only about eight years older than them, but sometimes he tried to front like he was forty or something. His taste in music seemed to have frozen somewhere in the mid-nineties, anyway, and his dancing was all white-man overbite. Even Kevin's step-father, who really was a white-dude in his forties, was a better dancer. Kevin sat back on his heels. "Let's do it."

Tim gave him an awkward thumbs up, then untied the last line holding them to the dock. As soon as they cleared the small wake-free zone, he cranked up the power on the outboard and they curved out across the still surface of the lake.

Under the cover of the noise and the wind, Kevin checked to make sure Connor, Sophie and Dre were looking forward, then he spun around to lean closer to Tim. "Are you sure you have time to be doing this?" he yelled.

"What?" Tim looked at him in confusion. "Of course!"

"Well, after we get it launched, if you want some help with the submersible project, just let me know."

Tim waved this away with an impatient shrug. "Don't worry about that."

"You should have asked for more time, or more help! Zane would have given it to you!"

"I'll get it working, Kev."

Eyeing Tim's closed expression and rigid jaw, Kevin sighed and sat back. He would try again, once they had their science project successfully launched. Tim was too good a guy to loose just because he'd hit a bit of a dry spell and had bad taste in music. And Kevin really wanted a way to convince Zane to let him work on the big bang simulation project. Helping Tim fix his submersible was a brilliant one stone, two birds thing. Kevin hoped.

_Sunday afternoon, Zane and Jo's Kitchen_

Before Steve's question had an answer, Zane walked back into the kitchen wearing a motorcycle jacket and carrying a data pad in one hand and a helmet in the other. Seeing this, Jo darted forward and took the helmet away from him. "Nope. Your head is already someplace else. Ride with Henry and Grace."

He frowned, startled out of whatever he was thinking about. "How will I get home?" he asked plaintively.

She smiled up at him, shaking her head with resigned laughter in her eyes. "We'll figure it out later."

"Okay." He returned the smile, bent his head to kiss her, then walked toward the front door, calling, "Henry? Grace? You coming?"

Deacon and Monroe followed him out, Carter and Jo walked them all to Deacon's tow-truck.

Cath met Steve's eyes. "Zane's with us now. He won't stop until he's done all he can."

"Took longer than I hoped." He knew he sounded petulant, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He'd gambled that Eureka had the solution for Danny. Not that they'd have to develop one. And the sixty seconds or so Zane took to make up his mind to help them was still stuck in his throat.

Cath looked pointedly at her watch. "A little over an hour from the time we woke Zane up, Danny is in one of the most advanced medical facilities on the planet, they will make him kidneys, and Zane is already designing some new fabricator-device in his head for the rest. I believe in him. You do too, or we wouldn't be here. Don't give up on him now!"

"There's a catch. Somewhere."

"Always is." She pushed away from the table and stood up. "Come on. We pressed family hard, the least we can do is act like it ourselves and clean the kitchen for them."

When Jo and Carter returned, he and Catherine had the remains of the meal cleared away, the dishwasher running and the counters wiped down. Carter was talking on his phone. Well, listening on his phone and grunting now and again. Jo went over to the empty coffee pot and hefted it up inquiringly. Steve nodded, gratefully accepting her offer to make another pot.

As soon as Carter ended his call, Steve said, "So? They'll help?"

"Yes." Jo smiled at him, gesturing with her hand for everyone to return to the table. "They'll do their best. But," and she grew very serious as they sat down, "no promises, you guys. They have no idea if they'll be able to make this work. It's all still," she exchanged a quick, indecipherable glance with Carter, "theoretical."

"I thought," Steve stopped short of saying 'they would drive a harder bargain,' and chose instead, "They might be reluctant to help someone from outside of Eureka."

Jo snorted, sounding fond and disapproving all at once. "They have trouble saying no – no to science, no to innovation, no to helping people."

"That's our job." Carter smiled again, but, this time, with very little warmth.

His heart began to hammer again and Steve realized that he had been wrong. The bargaining was just about to begin.

Jo picked up the ball. "It's part of why we're very hard to find. And why most of what we do is a closely guarded secret. They would drain themselves and RI dry, doing their damnedest for every last person in need who showed up. Until they had nothing left to give and Eureka was a wrecked shell. Mansfield knew that, when he sent you here."

"I got the impression," from Doris, not Mansfield, to be fair, "that the hard part would be convincing them to help."

"Oh. No. That's the easy part." Carter leaned forward, drawing his long fingers around the edge of his mug, his smile growing more predatory by the second. "We haven't got to the hard parts yet. I was just talking with Allison, and the news is not good. Your friend needs a miracle if he's to avoid a short life hooked up to feeding tubes." He raised his eyes to Steve's and all trace of friendly small town cop was gone. "Miracles are costly. We're grateful for all your help over the last year, which is why you were able to get this far. What comes next is up for discussion."

"We're listening." Steve shifted forward in his chair, trying to regain a little dominance. But his jaw was starting to ache from all the clenching he was doing.

"It's our job," Jo gestured at Carter and herself, "to protect Eureka and all its research. Nearly everything here is wildly, almost uncontrollably hazardous, even the good things. Maybe especially the good things. If people knew what we really do here, it would all be halted and Eureka would be eliminated. All the good work that gets done here, destroyed."

Steve nodded, to show he understood, though, he didn't really. Wasn't scientific research just that? Research, all observation and data collection? How could that be dangerous? He looked at Cath, but all she offered was a minute shrug. She didn't know what they were talking about either.

Jo leaned forward and recaptured their attention.

"Eureka is," she paused, searching for the right words, "old school. Think Edison and Menlo Park. Manhattan Project. Space-race era NASA. Only with far more powerful tools. It's all high risk, high reward, science-as-invention here. None of that painstaking, incremental work scientists talk about on the TV. This is all direct line from Pasteur and Tesla, Einstein and Oppenheimer, scientist as savior or destroyer of worlds. Theory goes straight to invention, with very few stops in between. It's the kind of cowboy approach to discovery that, for very good reasons, isn't embraced in the world today. High costs, high risks, frequent disaster, but the wins are so very big it all seems worth it."

"If only to know what not to do," Carter tossed in, rolling his eyes.

Jo ignored him. "We aren't only protecting secrets from the Russians, or the Chinese, or multinational corporations, or even just desperate people who need miracles, though all of that is certainly part of it. We are mostly protecting the world from Eureka."

"Which the world needs. Desperately. Trust me on this." Carter shook his head, conveying an odd blend of disapproval, frustration and, Steve was sure, pride. "I've lost track of how many globally catastrophic or near catastrophic events we've averted at the last minute."

Jo cleared her throat, shot Carter a reproving 'get back on track look,' and said, "Safeguarding the work requires attention and focus. But for the next several days, our director, Henry, and the head of one of our more dangerous divisions, Zane, will both be consumed with your project."

Carter slid his cup aside, making room for him to draw pictures in the air with his hands, "The resources they divert to this will come out of other researchers' labs; people, time, supplies, whatever machinery they start cannibalizing to make this new thing. All of it will have to be put back eventually, and will interrupt those projects and antagonize those researchers in the meantime. That's when people start making mistakes. Miscalculations." His eyes narrowed, "That's when things get dangerous." He paused, considering, then amended, "More dangerous."

"Your arrival, with Danny, disrupts an organization that is already, and always, walking the thin line between discovery and disaster." Jo said. "With you here, everything we are doing is a little more at risk today than it was yesterday, and more tomorrow than today."

Carter folded his hands on the table. "All to save one man's life."

Carter and Jo were turning out to be a damn fine tag team, and Steve was beginning to dimly understand what Doris had meant by her warning. He also suspected it was already too late. That it had been too late as soon as Mansfield gave them the coordinates to Eureka.

Jo continued, "Not that many will even hear about it. Most of what gets done here is so compartmentalized, intentionally, that very few people know the full breadth of what RI does. Zane's heart, for example. Less than two-dozen people here in town know what happened to him."

Carter added, in a tone of voice very like a cop cornering his suspects in an investigation, "And the three of you."

"In the US alone, at any one time, there are roughly three hundred candidates waiting for a new heart," Jo said. "We can make one heart at a time. It takes somewhere between ten and twenty hours. Assuming we have complete DNA information. Which of the three hundred waiting people gets the heart?"

Steve dropped his gaze to his hands.

"The three printed hearts in existence are all in men who worked directly on the project, and were willing to serve as human test subjects. Because that's what we do here. When a researcher drops from a heart attack, he agrees to have his chest cracked and an entirely experimental device implanted, knowing full well that it could fail in minutes or hours. The researchers are working as fast as they can to find the application model, but they still can't get the process to scale up."

She paused and narrowed her eyes, "In the meantime, it would be irresponsibly cruel and dangerous to raise expectations, like the ones that brought you here, that miracles are possible. They aren't. Not for everyone."

"So," Carter concluded, "most of the scientists disrupted today and tomorrow will regard their delayed and side-lined work as far more important than whatever, if any, unknown breakthrough Henry, Zane and the rest pull off for Danny. Danny, they don't know or care about at all. "

"And, yes, they would all willingly, some of them enthusiastically even, trade me, Zane and Parish for all of that. Twice over," Jo's smile was rueful.

"And they wouldn't necessarily be wrong," Carter concluded. "No offense," he said to Jo.

Jo rolled her eyes at him. "Thanks Carter."

She turned back to Steve, fixing her gaze on his face. "Eureka survives because it's isolated and compartmentalized. Because for the most part, no one knows all that we can do. Not even the people who live here."

"Your appearance in the middle of main street with a dying man in the back of your van, threatens all of that," Carter said.

"How many protocols did you violate looking for Eureka before you called Mansfield? What security precautions did you take to make sure you weren't followed, or tracked, once you did get the coordinates?" Jo asked. "Did you turn off your phones and pull the cards? Pull the batteries on your tablets? Disable the rental car GPS? Look for other electronic devices? Did you know your van had two anti-theft trackers?" She raised her brows questioningly, "No? Or Danny. There's no police report of a dying man missing from a Vegas hospital. You must have told some people what you were up to, or you would be wanted for kidnapping. Who did you tell? What did you tell them?"

"I…" Steve started to defend himself, defend Cath, but Carter cut him off.

"Since we don't yet have answers to those questions or many more like them, one way to diffuse the security threat you pose is to force you out. All three of you. Immediately. And under circumstances where no one would ever believe one word you said about what happened to you. Even if it meant destroying your credibility and professional reputations across the board. Even if it meant Danny's death."

Steve looked into Carter's cool blue eyes and, to his horror, believed every word he said.

Carter continued, "Another choice is to keep one or more of you here. Permanently." Carter snorted softly. "It's what happened to me. I wandered into an experiment gone massively wrong and ended up here for life." He looked at them, earnest and sincere. "Trust me. It can happen to you too."

Steve took a deep breath, ready to protest.

"You've already violated the agreements you signed. Twice. Two sets," Carter cut him off again. "You agreed to forget that you knew this possibility existed. Instead, barely six months later, here you are. Presenting good-hearted people with a dying man. They have extraordinary talents and resources that they will exploit to the fullest to try and save him. They would do the same for almost anyone who knew to reach out to them. Which is why we see to it that almost no one knows what they can do."

"So why are you helping us?" Steve finally managed to get a word in.

"Because you appealed directly to Zane," Carter sighed. "He couldn't look you in the eye and turn you down. Even though he knew that's what he should have done. If this was still a DOD owned facility, he'd have risked his job and career for violating any number of directives."

Carter raised his eyes to Steve's. "Not a great time in a man's life, to make him choose between a friend and his career."

Surging guilt made Steve want to protest that there was no way he could have known that Zane had chosen this particular moment to knock up his wife, but Jo spoke first.

Pointing an accusatory finger at him, she said, "Which is why you came in person. I know you stay in touch with Zane." She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes, "I know about that offshore hacking he did for you two months ago. You could have called from the road, but you didn't. Because you knew you would be turned away."

"So as of right now, we have to question your ability to respect the conditions of secrecy Eureka demands." Carter's tone made it clear where he was falling on the issue. He thought they would fail.

Jo went ahead and said it out loud. "As of right now, you represent a major security threat, internally as well as externally."

Steve held Jo's fierce gaze as long as he could, but once again he had to look away. In his desperate focus on Danny he had allowed himself to ignore what he damn well already knew.

He'd come here, so sure he was owed a miracle that he had completely ignored the possibility of consequences for violating the secrecy he and Catherine had agreed to. Multiple times. He should have known better. He did know better.

He had signed every damn stack of paper they'd put in front of him.

He knew what Zane did, and for whom, and what their powers were. He had watched RI employees execute people in cold blood to protect Eureka's secrets, for Christ's sake! He had helped bury the damn bodies and clean the scene of the crime. He had aided Zane and Jo when they'd been set up to be caught or killed by the North Koreans, or worse, by the CIA. Again, all to protect the extent of what Eureka could do. He had let his need and the brightly false surface of Eureka lull him into forgetting just how deadly its protectors could be.

There was no bargaining to be had. Simply a bill that would have to paid.

And it could all have been for nothing. He had been so focused on whether or not they would be willing to help him, willing to save Danny, that it had never occurred to him that they might not be able to. Ridiculous as it sounded in his own ears now, he'd been imagining something along the lines of shelves full of spare parts, or, maybe, Star Trek style replicators. He'd never imagined that it would require the director and Zane to drop everything they were doing and invent a machine that might be able to make a material that might be able to save Danny's life.

Except.

Except that he knew the price would never be too high. Not for Danny. Danny was, well, Danny. Essential. Irreplaceable. Vital. Alive. He took a deep breath, and put their futures in Jo's hands.

"Whatever I can do," he said.

"Whatever we can do," Catherine said, threading her fingers through his.

His eyes shuttered briefly closed as something close to pain shot through his heart. Catherine should be running like hell, should have run years ago. Instead here she was, watching his back, watching out for Danny, most likely understanding even better than he did what they'd just gotten themselves into. He opened his eyes and met her warm, steady gaze. He gripped her hand hard and said, "Anything." It was as much a promise to her as to Carter and Jo.

He looked back to Jo and Carter, adding more firmly, "Anything at all."

"Yes." With Carter's toothy grin and suddenly very steely blue eyes, his transformation from amiable, small town sheriff to shark was complete. "That should about cover it."

_Sunday Afternoon, Section Five, Rockwell Industries, Eureka_

"See, I don't get it, Fargo. This is really cool stuff." Zane frowned as he stared at his computer screen. "Why didn't you re-establish the line once you had the chance?"

Fargo's voice rolled out from the speakers. "The foams GD developed a few years later did the original job of improving outcomes for burn victims just as efficiently, and for a lower per unit cost. And we learned, after that whole episode with Carter and Zoe's car, that polymer skin designed to transfer organic properties rapidly worked just as well for bad things as good things."

"And you never adapted it for internal use?"

"No. It was all about external-surface repair." He grinned. "It was great with dings and nicks on cars! But," Fargo was nodding and looking at the initial specs Zane and Henry had worked up and sent to him, "you could. And in a sterile environment, that downside could be controlled. Theoretically. With extreme clean room protocols."

"We can do that."

"Okay. I'm sending you everything I can remember. It's been a while and I know there are some gaps. Henry can help, but you'll need…"

Zane rolled his eyes. "I actually know a lot about bio fabrication, Fargo."

Holly appeared over Fargo's shoulder. "Yes you do. Inside and outside of the lab!" Holly cackled madly and Zane grimaced in acknowledgement. "And I'll look over Doug's numbers before he sends them. Give Jo our love, okay? How's she doing?"

Zane hastily assured them Jo was doing great, promised to pass along the message and clicked the window closed as quickly as he could.

In theory, he had absolutely no objections to answering whatever questions anyone might care to ask about Jo's pregnancy, or anything else in his personal life. In practice, Holly's questions nearly always ended up being colossally awkward and weird. Like the time she asked, apropos of nothing Zane had ever been able to determine, if pregnancy really changed the flavor of vaginal fluids.

_Sunday Afternoon, Lake Archimedes, Eureka, Oregon_

Kevin, Sophie and Dre adjusted their masks and ear buds, sucked in their small silver breathers, and then with thumbs up, kicked backward off the front of the boat into the cold water of the lake. It would have been impossible without the dry suits, but fortunately the school kept a supply of them for the yearly scuba classes. They had all passed their certification course in the fall.

Once they were in the water, Tim and Connor wrestled the Freeflowing Underwater Mobile Evaluator, or FLUME, over the side. Kevin and Dre caught it and helped ease the bulky frame into the lake, Sophie holding the lines out of the way. Tim and Connor braced themselves to balance the open boat as they played out the neatly coiled lines, one set for the monitoring feeds, and one heavier tether to the buoy that would mark the location and broadcast their data.i

While Sophie kept the lines clear and untangled beside and above them, Kevin and Dre let the weight of the FLUME take them down.

Tim's voice in their ears guided them to the test site. It was nestled in a wide crevice created by the lava Jack and Nathan Stark had shot out into the lake several years back, after a rogue diamond farm destabilized the bedrock under the edge of town. The point of their testing now was to evaluate micro and macro changes in the lake environment as a result of the lava. So much had happened in the years since the eruption that after initial evaluations showed the lake settling back to normal parameters, no one had followed up on it. Kevin and his friends were attempting to develop sensors that could detect incredibly minor environmental changes, the kind they expected to find here, because of the lava. The FLUME was equipped with four of these testing modules, plus three more for macro changes that Sophie and Dre had modified from existing models. If it all worked, it would become part of a larger project for tracking and projecting underwater variations resulting from Global Climate Change.

Kevin had invited Tim to be part of their project, or, well, asked him to be an advisor, because he decided they wanted a mobile sensor that could bend with the currents. Tim's project, which had been moved into Zane's Section in the last year, was to develop flexible submersibles.

Long before the forty-minute limit on their breathers was up, they had the FLUME anchored to the sandy lakebed. They were about to head back for the surface, when Dre caught Kevin's arm and pointed to an opening in the rocky canyon wall just beyond their test site.

_Sunday Afternoon, Rockwell Industries, Eureka, Oregon_

Riding up the hill toward Rockwell Industries, Catherine confirmed that 'further up the mountains' was at least one answer to the question of where the labs and offices were located. And that "imposing" must have been at the top of the architect's 'to-do' list. The main building was a large glass and concrete structure crowning a hill overlooking the town, framed by a series of massive satellite dishes and cell phone towers rising high above it. It was made all the more impressive by the long, winding drive that offered plenty of opportunity for the new visitor to be sufficiently overawed. Probably for the regular visitors as well.

As they hit the second, inner ring of security, she leaned toward Steve and whispered, "This is more what I was expecting."

The first had been a simple bar and gate-hut, no more daunting than at your standard State Park campground. Though Carter had swiped a card and submitted to a retinal scan. This second layer included a high, electric and razor wire fence, an electric gate, substantial guardhouses, lantern-jawed, taser-sporting, sunglasses-wearing guards, full vehicle scanners, and ubiquitous cameras. They must have been under observation from about six different angles.

Steve nodded, his eyes darting everywhere and nowhere as he took in the security, no doubt cataloguing everything for a later analysis of potential weak spots. Not that she saw any. Based on her first assessment, subterfuge or tanks seemed the two best options for getting in uninvited. This was the secret government facility she'd expected to find, based on Doris's dark warnings, and given their desperate need, she couldn't help feeling hugely relieved.

The guard handed ID badges, already complete with their names and photos, and visitors tags through the window to the Sheriff, who handed them back to Steve and Catherine. Jo had pulled in just ahead of them, waving another massive set of non-disclosure agreements at the guards on her way through. Sitting at her kitchen table, looking out at the mountains just beginning to turn a pale green, Catherine and Steve had signed them.

The documents were as impressive as the building, also intentionally so she was sure. They covered every imaginable circumstance and many it had never occurred to Catherine to imagine, things about black holes and dimensional displacements and quantum entanglements and unexpected geosizemic events. She thought about asking questions, but there was no time. And, probably, no answers forthcoming. In any case, the penalties for violating the confidentiality it was all buried in were fiendishly simple. A lifetime in solitary confinement, at best, if they ever told anyone they had even heard of Eureka. But not signing was no longer an option. They signed.

Sheriff Carter followed Jo's little blue car into a mostly empty parking lot, pulling into a slot marked "Sheriff." Which was odd, and not especially reassuring. What happened up here that the town Sheriff was on, essentially, twenty-four hour call? She caught Steve's eye and nodded at the sign, but he only shrugged.

She suddenly wanted to slap the back of his head and tell him to sack up. His wallowing in remorse for leading them all into, well, whatever they'd just driven into, was sending her right up a wall. She was a grown adult and a full partner in this relationship. She had been there when Jo's soldiers had executed members of the Consortium. She had read the documents they signed in Honolulu last fall, more thoroughly than he had she was sure. She had understood exactly what consequences they were opening themselves up to by coming here. Prison was only the beginning. She had come anyway, without hesitation or doubt. For Danny. For Steve. For herself.

She counted to ten, then fifteen, and reminded herself that right now, it was all about Danny.

Walking up to the attractive and corporate looking main entrance, she noted that like the town, it was another classic of mid-century modernism. It was lower in profile up close than it had seemed on the approach, with human-sized, horizontal windows and a cantilevered overhang. The wide, cement apron was decorated with a tasteful sculpture that had _Rockwell Industries_ carved on the base.

There were more guards at the front desk, more swiping of their cards, and still more armed guards stationed in the large, marble-floored rotunda in the center of the building.

In the elevator going down, Catherine discovered that the building was much, much larger than she first realized. Most of it was underground. Up in the hills, and underground.

The science-y, high-tech, military, and especially the super-secret part of Eureka, was, at last, very, very real. Meanwhile the brightly colored town behind them seemed less substantial by the minute. She half wondered if they would come back to the surface to find it had simply floated away, leaving only a few scattered foundations to show where it had been.

"This way," Jo said, and led off down a long, curving hall, waving briefly at more armed guards as they passed.

_Sunday Afternoon, RI Infirmary_

"Danny?" The familiar voice washed over him, and Danny strained to wake up. "Danno? You awake?"

Danny cracked his eyes open, mildly aware that this time it was easier. The first thing he saw was Steve's grim face, and hovering over his shoulder, an equally grim looking Catherine. "Hey," he croaked, "You guys. What did you do?"

Steve smiled, relief washing away the worst of the lines around his eyes. "We brought you to Eureka. So Zane and Dr. Blake can help you get better."

Danny blinked, clearing his eyes and his head, painful suspicions flaring in his chest. "Steve. Why did you have to bring me here? What's so wrong that they couldn't treat it in Vegas?"

Steve looked up at Cath, his expression one of deep anguish, and the painful little suspicion in Danny's chest blossomed into a great, blooming, icy panic. Microscopic silver lining, it made him feel much more awake and his eyes no longer wanted to close. "Steven?"

Steve wrapped his big, warm hand around Danny's and squeezed gently. "How much do you remember?"

"I remember everything, including waking up in the ambulance on the way to the hospital in Vegas. Where they put me to sleep. After that, not so much. Ceilings. Cold rooms. Riding in the back of a van. And then waking up here."

"You remember being beaten?"

"Yes. I do. It was bad." Danny looked up at Catherine, and then back to Steve. "Really bad?"

"Really bad. Your guts are pretty messed up, Danno."

"And they can't be fixed, not in Vegas?"

Another tight-eyed exchange between Steve and Cath. "Yeah."

Danny shifted to look Cath in the face. "Catherine. What isn't he telling me?"

Catherine swallowed hard, but she answered. It was a quality he had come to appreciate, her ability to look directly at difficult things. God knew Steve didn't have it. Even now he was staring intently at their linked hands, and not at Danny's face.

"Your intestines are mostly pulp right now," she was saying, "and they're leaking. In a lot of places. You've got a pretty vicious infection raging, though Dr. Blake is getting that under control." She put a reassuring hand on Steve's shoulder, though it wasn't entirely clear to Danny if she was giving or receiving. Probably both. "They don't know if they can fix them. Zane is doing everything he can."

That got his heart beating. "What do you mean, they don't know?"

"Turns out you can't print intestines as easily as you can print hearts. So, Zane is building a machine that might be able to create a sort of," she looked at Dr. Blake, "biological bandage?"

Dr. Blake nodded. "Yes. An organic polymer skin. Which we'll use to wrap your intestines, which should allow them to heal on their own."

"If they can make it." Danny said, making sure he was clear on the process.

"Yeah. They will. Zane will." Steve finally looked up and nodded firmly.

"If." Danny realized he was now quite awake enough to glare at Steve. "I distinctly heard an 'if'." He looked back at Dr. Blake. "Then you will cut open my stomach and wrap this, not yet invented, material around my insides."

"Yes." Dr. Blake smiled warmly, and oh boy, did he want to believe whatever this lovely woman said. "Zane and Henry are very good at what they do. And so is my surgical team. I have faith."

"Did we mention the new kidneys?" Steve asked, his eyes lighting up as he offered whatever crazed version of good news he had.

"No, Steve. No you did not mention the new kidneys."

"Yeah. New kidneys, too. But those they already can do."

"I see." Danny was still holding on to Steve's hand, so tightly his bandaged fingers were starting to hurt. He forced himself to let go and swallow down the lump of panic in his throat. It settled in his burning gut, cold and not at all comforting.

_Sunday Afternoon, Rockwell Industries_

Zane grinned as he caught sight of Jo coming toward him down the hallway. He slowed to a saunter.

She slowed too, and deliberately looked him up and down, an approving, possessive gleam in her eyes. He preened, just a little. Well, a little more. He loved it when she looked at him like that. That look kept him going to the gym, even when he was slammed with work and really should have stayed in his lab. She raised her eyes to his and smiled happily.

He loved that too. "Hey, gorgeous. Looking for me?"

"As a matter of fact, I am," she said.

He circled around her, leaning in from behind her to ask, "Now that you found me, what do you need?"

She turned and stepped in to him, sliding her warm hands along his chest, grinning wickedly up at him, her dark eyes glowing, her voice husky, "So, so many things."

He put his hands on her hips and pulled her closer, his pulse picking up and his body beginning to heat. "Sounds interesting. Tell me more."

Still holding his eyes, her voice dropped further, "I'll make a list."

So did his. "Promises, promises."

"You'll have to come home tonight to see it."

Some of the heat fled. He dropped his hands. "Hmm. Yeah. About that…"

"Zane. Don't." She dropped her own hands and stepped back. "I already spoke with Allison and I know you have too. She wants twenty-four to thirty-six hours to stabilize Danny and get his infections under control before attempting any new surgery."

"I know, babe. But…"

She interrupted him, "but nothing. Skipping meals or sleeping in your lab won't make your programs compile any faster or build your fabricator any better or do anything at all to help Danny."

He frowned and started to speak, but she kept on talking. "Regular hours. That was our deal. You make every effort to keep regular hours. We eat together and you sleep at home. Which is less than ten minutes away. This is the first time you've had to choose. Please don't blow it."

He opened his mouth, remembered at the last possible nano-second he was a genius and closed it again. They did have a deal, one it had taken time and effort to agree to. Not because its terms were difficult, but because he hadn't thought it was necessary. Of course he would help her as much as he could.

For a genius, it had taken him an embarrassingly long time to figure out what the problem with that framing was. Jo had been no help at all either, just arching her elegant brows and half-smiling, half-frowning at him, more or less in the same way she'd examine a kitten that tied itself up in string. Though she would have helped to free the kitten. Him, she only eventually suggested he look up studies on why Dutch fathers in dual career marriages had more children than Italian

Which clarified the issue. Dutch fathers took parental leave, shared childrearing with their partners and did housework. Italian fathers did not. It was correlation, not causation, but theory explained the data, which was strong, solid and replicated for other countries. None of which made embracing change, even change he wanted, one damn bit easier. After a long moment, he confessed, "This is going to be harder than I thought."

She linked her arm through his and they started off toward the Infirmary. "I know." She bumped his shoulder with hers. "We'll get through it."

About half way there, he said, "I love you."

She dropped his arm and gave him some unfriendly side eye. "Reminding yourself?"

Her tone was dry enough to curl paint.

"No!"

She sniffed and rolled her eyes.

He slung his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, ducking his head and admitting with a rueful chuckle, "Eh. Maybe just a little."

"Mmmf." She leaned into him. "I love you too."

He pressed a kiss against her hair, and didn't say anything else. He loved her. He loved her so much it terrified him if he thought about it too often or too deeply. He wanted a family. He was the one who had pushed to go ahead now. Whining that 'babies are hard, man,' months before theirs even showed up was going to score him no points at all. But, oh, how he wanted to.

_Sunday Late Afternoon, Lake Archimedes_

The underwater cave went deeper than Kevin, Sophie and Dre stretched out together could reach, Dre anchoring them to the entrance with his hands while Kevin held Dre's ankles and Sophie clutched his and tried to find the rear wall with the tips of her flippers.

The cave had blocked Tim's instructions in their ears, but as soon as they were in open water again, Tim's agitated voice was non-stop, demanding to know where they were. Unfortunately they had no way to let him know they heard him. Checking his watch, Kevin realized they had to get to the surface soon anyway, and signaled the ascent.

They would definitely have to come back with lights.

_Sunday Late Afternoon, Empty, now re-purposed, lab in Section Three, Rockwell Industries _

Steve peered curiously over the sheriff's shoulder. They were behind a protective glass partition in a large lab one floor down from the infirmary. The brightly lit space held several high tables, each one filled with disassembled machinery and electronics. In the middle of the room Zane was adding bits and pieces to a frame that looked, to Steve's untutored eye, like something out of an old erector set. Zane worked quickly, clever fingers finding pieces almost without looking and affixing them with little to no adjusting. Steve suspected that Zane had no idea that he and the sheriff were even there.

Deacon walked in behind them. He had exchanged his brown coveralls and work boots for an expensive, finely-tailored dark suit with a Nehru collar and shiny black wingtips. He had shed his wool cap, revealing his short, salt and pepper hair. Now, he looked like the director of a top-secret think tank that he was. "Hey Jack. Commander." He nodded through the window, "He has a schematic in mind, so I think we should have something working before tomorrow."

"Allie said she'd like at least twenty-four hours to try to get Detective Williams' infections under control, so…" Carter trailed off and shrugged.

At some point Carter had also changed clothes. He was wearing his brown sheriff's uniform, his gun at his hip and his badge glinting on his chest. Steve was acutely aware of the absence of his own sidearm, a phantom limb reminding him how vulnerable he was to the forces, seen and unseen, in Eureka.

Steve watched Zane work for a few more minutes, then asked, "How does he know which part he wants next? Does he have a plan?"

"Sort of," Deacon folded his arms and smiled in a vaguely paternal way. "Basically we're aiming for a modified polymer chip fabricator attached to a modified neoprene mixer, so once we stripped down some standard ones for their components, a large part of what he's doing is essentially reassembling, but for a different bed and with different feeds. It's more like, he knows what it should be able to do when he's done. He works as much by feel and experience as a plan. This part is less science and more old-school craft work."

"And once he's built it, you can make the stuff?"

"Not quite. We're still working out the accelerators and timing. And the programming. But, building first gives us plenty of time to perform test runs."

"And then, assuming it all works, you put experimental tissue inside my partner." He tried not to sound as skeptical and disappointed as he felt. He had wanted magical new organs straight off the shelf, damn it. Not experimental, created on the fly guesswork.

"Yes." Deacon's expression was sympathetic. "There are not a lot of good choices for him."

"Hey! Look at me!" Carter exclaimed. "I'm fine and I had this stuff applied to every inch of my body." He grimaced, "I am not exaggerating for effect here."

"What did you get into? You never said." Steve wondered if there would be any answer.

To his mild surprise, Cater replied, "Long story short? A fast acting radioactive isotope."

Deacon broke into a wide smile and clapped his hands in glee. "Jack! You got that right!"

"Really." Jack made a disbelieving face. "You're still surprised?"

Deacon clapped him on the shoulder. "No." He shrugged, "Well. Yes. Sometimes."

"In my defense, it was my body, Henry. I was motivated to understand."

Steve interrupted them. "And they just slapped this stuff on you, hoping it would work?"

"More or less. Yeah. Like Zane was explaining to Danny, our contracts include clauses that function more or less as blanket permission to be treated as test subjects for anything RI might choose."

"It's partially a way of dealing with potential liabilities from chemical spills or other accidents," Deacon remarked. "I used to object, in principal, but the number of accidents we have is pretty high and this is an efficient way of dealing with that."

"You just declare it a test."

Deacon shrugged. "It's not admirable, but it serves a purpose. Take Jack's case. He was exposed through a bizarre series of events that could not have been foreseen. He agreed to let us try the polymer skin, but without his contract in hand, we would have needed that great pile of liability waivers and binding confidentiality agreements and future health care directives Detective Williams is working his way through right now. Too often, when the situation is most dire, it's also one where time is of the essence."

And even if time wasn't of the essence, that stack of documents Jo had presented to Danny was beyond daunting. Steve would have signed all of it, blindly, but Danny just wasn't that kind of guy. Thank God Catherine was willing to sit with him and work through every last page. Between her general inclinations and her intelligence background, massive piles of paper held no terror for her. Which made her an excellent partner for that task, and freed Steve to take a tour with the sheriff, seeing where the polymer skin was being developed, where the surgery would take place. Win, win all around as far as Steve was concerned.

"Or even less dramatic things," the sheriff was saying, "Our last disaster simulation drill resulted in over a dozen real time injuries, from concussions to broken bones."

Steve snorted. "Sounds like the military."

Deacon nodded gravely. "This was a military operation for a very long time."

Steve looked at him curiously. The place was crawling with former, and if his eyes were as good as he thought they were, not-former military security. If this was the kinder, gentler, less militarized version of Eureka he had trouble imagining its earlier self.

_Sunday, Late Afternoon, Lake Archimedes_

"Seriously you guys! Do anything like that ever again and I will pull the plug on this whole project."

Kevin lifted his eyes from his knees and looked up to see if Tim had run out of words. Tim was still standing in the middle of the open boat, the better to glare down at Kevin and his friends, but he had, finally, stopped yelling and waving his arms. Unfortunately this turned out to be only a mild improvement because he was still just repeating himself over and over again.

"We get it, man!" Kevin tried again. "We should have surfaced, reported and gone back down with lights. But seriously, Tim, it's a huge cave! And the walls, what we could see and feel anyway, are totally smooth. It's awesome."

"It's also impossible to see into with the equipment we have out here, and if you were to get into trouble down there is nothing I could do to save your sorry hides. And I do NOT want to be the one who reports to your parents that I was responsible for something like that." Tim's voice and expression remained repressive in the extreme.

"They'll be less shocked than you think. I was only thirteen the first time I stole Jack's jeep. And Zoe was committing felonies by then."

"I don't give a crap about your criminal tendencies. I'm worried about your lives, you idiots." Tim's voice had softened, and he sighed and sat down at last. "I'm pretty sure I'm not getting through to you at all, so we might as well call it a day. The feeds are solid and data is transmitting. We should have enough usable inputs to run comparisons on by this evening."

_Sunday Evening, S.A.R.A.H._

"Zane has arrived. Shall I let him in?" The talking house inquired, in her perky, helpful, and strangely timbered voice.

The talking house! Who was a World War II era bunker dressed up as a luxury penthouse! Who was dating the robot deputy! Somehow this bit of Jetsons-like futurism had finally convinced Catherine that these remarkable people really would be able to save Danny. People who were otherwise almost too extraordinary to accept as real: the gifted doctor who was married to the town sheriff who was best friends with the garage mechanic who was the brilliant leader of a scientific community that entrusted top secret military research to an endlessly inventive former felon, mostly because he was married to one of the fiercer women Catherine had met in a long career of knowing fierce women. Or perhaps it was the beer on tap that came out of the fridge. Whatever, she was definitely feeling a bit giddy and euphoric.

"Let him in, Sarah," Jack called.

"Zane! Zane! Zane! Zane!" Four-year old Jenna cried, running through the living room as the door hissed open on the late arrival. (An air-sealed door! On a bunker that was a computerized, talking house!)

Zane came through the door and held open his arms, "Jenna, Jenna, Jenna, Jenna!" he answered, sweeping her up into a hug.

Catherine wasn't normally very baby crazy, or even all that enthusiastic about little kids, preferring them once they got to be about eight or nine. But she could definitely acknowledge that Jenna, with her corona of fluffy, brown ringlets and warm, light brown skin, was pretty completely adorable. And Jenna's thrilled excitement at seeing Zane was to die for.

"Really, Zane? Bedtime?" Allison said, "You had to show up at bedtime?" Despite her words, she appeared to be quite cheerfully resigned to the chaos of her evening.

Jenna wrapped her arms tightly around Zane's neck, pressed her cheek to his and cried, "No! Mommy! Not yet! Zane just got here!"

Zane looked apologetically at Allison. "Sorry. I didn't even think."

Jo looked up from the couch. She'd been talking with Zoe Carter, the sheriff's oldest daughter home from medical school for a visit. Fifteen-month old Max, Allison and Jack's curly-haired, blue-eyed son, was crawling between them and trying to distract them with his toys. Zoe and Max bookended the blended family, with Allison's two older children, Kevin and Jenna, falling in between.

"He's here, and it's not midnight," Jo said. She twisted her head to grin up at her husband, "I'm totally calling it a win."

"You hear that Jenna? Jojo says I'm good!" Zane set the little girl down, then leaned over the back of the couch to kiss his wife.

Their kiss went from chaste to erotic in about two seconds flat. Newly mindful of the restrictions that bound his life as a walking research subject, Catherine saw it as an inspired act of defiance and reclaiming.

Obviously less impressed, Zoe Carter threw a small pillow at them, groaning, "Eww. Children present."

Perhaps it was still the beer.

Zane pulled away from Jo, picked up the pillow and tossed it back at Zoe. "Who? You?"

Catherine directed a laughing glance at Steve, who caught her eyes and shook his head, shrugging a half smile. She was relieved to see more of his tension fading away in the warm glow of a happy family. It really was impossible not to believe that these amazing, loving people, who took out of this world technology and used it to make smart houses and Mayberry cops and working hearts, would do everything in their considerable power to save Danny.

Jenna, who had run into the eating area to hang on her mother's shoulder and whisper furiously in her ear, went dashing back to stand in front of the couch. "Zane? Do you wanna see my dance? For my recital?"

Jo smiled at her. "Of course we do. Show Zane your dance, then it's time to go up to bed. Deal?" She held out her hand. Jenna thought about it for a few seconds, then nodded and put her hand in Jo's. They shook hands solemnly.

Zane came around the couch and took a seat next to Jo. With a sincere, melting grin that must have saved his ass on numerous occasions, or alternatively, nearly gotten him killed, Catherine supposed, Zane said, "I have been waiting all day to see your dance."

A beaming Jenna puffed up about three sizes, then called, "Sarah! Music!"

A familiar Bach melody started up and Jenna began her dance, counting the beats under her breath with an expression of intense concentration as she stepped through the simple routine. Once she finished, dropping into a deep, if wobbly, curtsey, everyone applauded and cheered, Catherine right along with the rest. Jenna radiated glee as she basked in the applause. Allison collected Max from Zane's lap, then firmly escorted her small, prancing daughter up the stairs.

Catherine followed Zane and Jo into the kitchen area. She was still quite entranced by the magical beer-dispensing refrigerator. She was just in time to hear Zane, in a tone of baffled and not very pleased surprise, say, "McAdams?"

The pale, bearded young man had come in with Kevin Blake and three of his friends. The five of them had mostly stayed working on a science fair project in the little greenhouse attached to the kitchen area rather than follow the rest of the group out into the living-dining room. (An underground greenhouse! For oxygen! In case the bunker named Sarah was ever cut off from the world above. What a crazy, amazing town this was!) At the sound of Zane's voice, McAdams hastily straightened up from the data pads he and the teens had been absorbed in since they arrived.

"Dr. Donovan," McAdams nodded, wiping his palms along the front of his jeans.

Zane made an exasperated sound. "You might as well call me Zane. These guys here already do." He jerked his chin at Kevin and his friends.

"Tim is helping us with our science project!" Kevin said, uncoiling from his stoop to his full height, which was even taller than the gangly Tim McAdams.

Kevin Blake was a big, handsome kid, much darker skinned than his mother or half siblings. He had a wonderful smile and buckets, no, oceans, of self-assurance. Self-assurance derived from, among other things, Catherine understood, the fact that he was remarkably brilliant, even in a town full of precociously brilliant people.

The contrast with sallow, nerdy, nervous Tim did the more senior scientist no favors at all, in Catherine's estimation. Or in poor Tim's either, she suspected, watching his eyes dart anxiously around the room. Probably looking for an exit.

"He's been awesome, really!" Kevin added, clapping Tim on the back. His enthusiasm was a bit overpowering, and Tim flinched.

Zane raised a faintly disapproving brow. "I didn't know you were one of the advisors this year," he said to Tim.

"I'm not, not officially, but…"

Whatever Tim's stuttering explanation might have been, Kevin cut him off. "We were having a problem with our prototype, and I remembered Tim is working on something similar. So I asked him for help."

"How do you know what Tim is working on?" Without waiting for an answer, Zane turned to Tim, eyes narrow with irritation, "Is there some part of 'secret government funded lab' that was unclear to you?"

Catherine had never seen Zane deal with any of his subordinates other than Isaac Parish, though she was aware that he supervised several dozen people. She wasn't quite sure what to make of this Tim's quaking-in-his-boots attitude. Zane didn't strike her as someone who would be terribly frightening to work for, though it did appear that death by sarcasm wasn't necessarily off the table. It made her wonder what was up with Tim.

"I'd certainly like to hear the answer to that question, myself," Jo said, crossing her arms and examining poor Tim with an icy glare.

Jo, on the other hand, would be downright terrifying Catherine thought.

"It's my fault, guys, really!" Kevin spoke before an even-paler Tim found his voice. "We met at the winter holiday staff party, and he said he was working on flexible submersibles. That's all, no lie, Jo! And I remembered that when we were having trouble with our prototype."

Zane continued to frown at Tim. "You've had time to help these guys with their science fair project?"

"Only a little bit," Kevin rushed in again before Tim could answer, "mostly some design modifications, a lubricant, nothing big. And I have NO IDEA what he is working on for you."

Whatever Tim's abilities, Catherine longed to whisper to him that letting a teenager run interference with the boss was a really, really bad plan. Even for a boss as unimpressed with hierarchy as Zane Donovan. She also didn't believe for one second that Kevin Blake didn't have a very good idea about whatever it was Tim was working on.

Zane continued to frown darkly at all of them, but finally shrugged and picked up a plate. "I assume your redesign is going well then?" he asked in tone of voice that strongly implied he suspected the opposite.

"Fine!" Tim blurted. "Just fine." He turned to Kevin and his friends. "Gotta run, though, guys. I'll text you later."

Tim fled.

"Zane!" Kevin turned on him as soon as the bunker door hissed closed behind Tim. "Dude! Why did you scare him away?"

"Since you're trying to cover his ass for him, I'm sure you know why." Zane scooped up silverware and turned for the table, closing the discussion on poor Tim. Then he turned back to add, "By the way, I don't expect to see any sign of your work in his lab when I visit tomorrow. Not only would that violate dozens of different security protocols, but you swore to your mother you would not get involved with any weapons development projects."

_Sunday night, Infirmary_

"Hey Danno," Steve said, happy to see that Danny was still awake. "Feeling any better?"

"Yeah. Actually. I do. Whatever they've given me for the fever and infection seems to be working."

"I think it's antibiotics for the infection, and nanites for," he trailed off, "something. But they're not afraid of pain meds here, so you're on the really good stuff." Steve leaned down to kiss Danny's forehead, then his cheeks, then his lips; happy that his skin really did feel noticeably cooler than ten hours ago. Then he dropped down in the chair next to Danny's bed and reached for his hand.

Danny raised his brows in interest. "Is that it? How come I don't feel groggy?"

"Like I said. The _really_ good stuff."

Danny grinned. "So. Maybe you did the right thing."

"I hope so."

"Hey." Danny reached out to touch Steve's cheek. "I'm already better."

Steve struggled to keep his smile from wobbling away too quickly. Danny wasn't better, he was worse. Two different veins they were using to feed him had collapsed from low blood pressure, and Dr. Blake had started dialysis for his kidneys late in the afternoon.

Danny must have picked up on something anyway, because he added, "The nurses all believe that Zane and Director Deacon are capable of miracles. So we should too."

Steve ran with it. "Zane's back downstairs in his lab now, at least until the nurses kick me out tonight. He says the fabricator is mostly ready for testing. I think he's working on the programming now while Dr. Deacon works on the accelerators."

Danny huffed a faint mocking laugh. "Do you have any idea what all that means?"

"No." Steve grinned. "None."

"Where's Catherine?"

"She fell asleep in the car on the five minute trip between Carter's bunker and Jo and Zane's house."

"She still mad at you?"

Steve exhaled on a long breath of rueful laughter and shook his head. "No. We dealt with it. She was right. I was wrong." He winked at Danny, "as someone once explained to me, I apologized straight up. Said I was sorry for taking credit for her choices. Or, in this case, wallowing in guilt I had no rights too."

"Good man."

"I try," Steve shrugged. He still had trouble, sometimes, accepting that Catherine really, truly didn't want a traditional life. That she wasn't 'settling' for what she could get, but had what she wanted. His hang-up, not hers, but it had caused hurt feelings and miscommunication more than once. Like so many things, theirs remained a work in progress. "So… it's just me, tonight."

"Nice. I like that." Danny smiled, and Steve smiled back. Then Danny twisted his brows in curiosity. "Bunker? The sheriff lives in a Bunker?"

"Oh, Danno. Not like any bunker you've ever imagined. It's Cold War era bunker that's been modified into a robotic house, all underground, but light and open, and, basically totally amazing in every way."

"Wait. A robotic house?"

"Yeah! Dating the robotic deputy sheriff!" Steve laughed then, and began to describe the way more than six impossible things he'd seen since breakfast.

_Monday, just before dawn, Zane and Jo's House_

Zane opened his eyes in the grey gloom of a rainy morning and wondered what time it was. Squinting at the clock he realized it was about half an hour too early, and wondered why he was awake. The sound of the toilet drew his attention and he rolled over to watch Jo come back into their bedroom.

Jo rarely slept straight through the night. Once he and Jo started sleeping together, he had needed to train himself to go back to sleep if her moving around woke him. Over the years, he'd adjusted. But pregnancy had meant the frequency of these nightly trips of hers had doubled—at least. This early morning run in particular was becoming common, and had the singularly annoying side effect of shorting his sleep overall. If her pre-dawn moving disturbed him, he never managed more than a light doze between now and the alarm.

As he was not the one growing a new human just above his bladder, he resolved, again, to never complain about this.

He lifted the blankets for her. "Hi," he murmured.

"Hi," she said, sliding easily over to spoon herself into his arms. Catching his hand from her waist, she pulled it up and kissed his knuckles, before tucking his arm more securely around herself. "Sorry. I couldn't wait."

"Couldn't wait last night either," he laughed quietly into her hair.

"I tried!" She wiggled over onto her back, so she could look up into his face. "I really did. I was awake until I heard you and Steve come in. After that," she shrugged and offered him a crooked grin, "I got nothing."

"You didn't even turn out the light."

"Really? I didn't?" Her laughing voice turned more serious and she reached up to run her fingers along his cheek. "How did your work go?"

"It went well. We're going start running test batches this morning."

"Good." She smiled again, then raised her brows in curiosity, "Did you find my list?"

"It was on my pillow," He turned his head to kiss her palm. "I read the whole the thing. Twice. It's a good list."

It was a really, _really_ good list, in fact. Given the short, silky nightgown she'd fallen asleep in, it was also one she'd meant to act on. Which was entirely too bad, because… and his dick stirred with interest as a new thought came to him. That lost opportunity was no reason to ignore the time they had now. He pulled his hand free from hers and ran it firmly down her torso to her hip, pulling her closer.

"Anything in particular catch your eye?" she asked, arching under his hand and tightening her grip on his forearm.

"Yes." He slid his leg across hers, angling his hips and rocking gently so she could feel his thickening cock against her thigh. "But it's too noisy with guests in the house."

"I see." She was grinning again. "Anything from the quieter end of the spectrum?"

He rolled away to pluck the list from the night table and hand it to her. "Pick one," he said, and turned off the alarm.

_Early Monday Morning, Zane and Jo's Kitchen_

Catherine tiptoed through in the quiet house, not sure if anyone else was awake. Steve was definitely still sound asleep, snoring heavily the way he did only if he was truly exhausted. Which was part of the reason she was no longer sleeping. Also, when Steve was stressed, like, say, now, he was a clingy sleeper. Between the snoring and the human octopus thing, she'd finally given up trying to eek out any more sleep herself and started reading her email on a tablet Zane had lent her. Which is when she got the message from Chin that had her creeping downstairs, determined to get ahead of it before Steve woke up.

Low voices in the kitchen caught her attention and she moved forward to pause just outside the doorway, surprised to hear the familiar tones of Dr. Blake. Peering around the doorjamb, she was arrested by the sight of Jo and Zane. They were standing in front of the kitchen windows. Zane had caught Jo from behind, and was holding her close against his broad chest with one long arm looped around her shoulders. Jo was leaning back into his embrace, her left hand wrapped loosely around his forearm, the fingers of her right hand caught in the crook of her left arm. Her expression was serene and gentle as she listened to whatever Allison Blake was saying. The kitchen table was scattered with medical implements, and a small stand of what had to be freshly drawn blood samples.

Catherine knocked on the doorframe. "Good morning," she said.

The three of them looked up, faces wreathed in welcoming smiles.

"How'd it go last night?" Catherine asked.

"Good. Henry and Grace and a few people from organic materials have a formula we're ready to try this morning," Zane answered, dropping his arm and moving reluctantly away from Jo.

"Other people?" she asked, wondering about all the security they'd been insisting on.

"Yeah," he nodded his head and winked at her, obviously hearing her question in her tone. "Henry and I may be polymaths by inclination, but that doesn't mean we don't respect expertise."

Allison started to laugh, and apparently seeing Catherine's blank look, Jo elaborated, "He means they actually do know the limits of their own skills." She rolled her eyes fondly at her husband, "Sometimes anyway. Zane started in theoretical physics, Henry was a rocket scientist. Really. He worked for NASA and Jet Propulsion Labs in the 80s and early 90s. Biological engineering is a field neither of them are specialists in. So, for this, they have others working with them."

Catherine raised her brow. "How many is 'a few'?"

"Six researchers from bio engineering. The same people who are printing Danny's kidneys, plus the two lab techs," Zane replied, turning away from Jo and looking up at the clock. "Gotta go, babe. First test run starts in half an hour. Cath. Allison."

He kissed Jo, nodded at Catherine and Dr. Blake, pulled on a dark blazer, and was gone.

"What's all this?" Catherine asked as the door closed behind Zane, gesturing at the table, where even now Allison was efficiently repacking what looked exactly like a traditional doctor's bag.

"It's Monday morning, time for Zane's weekly blood draws," Jo answered, handing her a full cup of coffee. "And today, one for preggo me."

"You get house calls from the medical director for blood draws? Wow! Such service!"

"We do most of Zane's follow up care here. Otherwise we'd have to explain his weekly trips to the infirmary," was Jo's pointed reply.

"And it's not so bad," Allison added, "We have time to talk in a private environment, and I can ask questions that the researchers want asked but are easier coming from an old friend."

In response to Catherine's questioning look, Jo elaborated, her tone very dry, "all the invasive body questions. Poop, pee, food, sex."

"Ah," Catherine nodded in understanding. "So, that's his five." She looked at Jo. "Why you? Weekly blood testing isn't a normal part of prenatal care." Catherine didn't bother to mask her look of horror, "Is it?"

Jo laughed and shook her head. "Oh, no! Not weekly! Once a month for me. Along with being an older first time mother, I'm a first responder. It's part of my job. Which means I'm exposed to all kinds of spills and fires and fumes, several times a week, sometimes several times a day. So, it's pretty standard, actually." She shivered. "You'd think I'd be getting over my thing about needles by now. But, no."

"And so far, everything is exactly what it should be. You're still in perfect condition, Jo," Allison grinned at her friend, then snapped her bag closed and pulled on her own jacket. "I have to run too. I'll see you all later?"

Catherine and Jo nodded and assured her they would.

After Allison was gone, a short silence fell. Jo pulled a bottle of disinfectant cleaner from below the sink and started washing down the table surface, shooting Catherine steady, serious looks as she worked. At last she said, "You're angry about something?"

Catherine chuckled, but without humor. She hadn't intended for her mood to be read so quickly. "How could you tell?"

Jo pointed at herself, "Former cop. Current security chief. Married to Zane Donovan. I'm pretty good at decoding the silent glare."

Fine. All cards on the table then. Catherine folded her arms and tossed out her challenge. "I got copied on a message from Chin. Suits arrived yesterday and stripped all the computer hardware from Five-O HQ."

Jo didn't even blink. Catherine realized she'd already known.

"Five-O's HQ isn't secure," Jo replied. "Neither are its hardware or its network. Chin and Kono were looking for Eureka, and got closer than we'd like. We had to remove the trail. The equipment will all be replaced by the end of the day today."

"And the suits took Toast." Catherine was still too stunned to be more than distantly outraged by this, but she suspected hot anger would come later.

"Their local hacker. I know. You shouldn't have had him looking for Eureka."

"Where will they take him?"

"They'll do an eval, then put him to work in an environment that makes the best use of his skills."

"He's a stoner. And a good kid!"

"Yes. He's not the first one like that to get swept up by the DOD. They have people used to working with people like him, re-settling them into new locations and new jobs that match their skills. He's not disappeared, just relocated. Think of it like a supervised work release, similar to the one that brought Zane to Eureka. Toast will be fine."

Jo's casual acknowledgment that in the name of protecting Eureka, her reach was very long indeed, was jaw dropping. Catherine wanted to kick herself for being surprised, but she was anyway. "How can you just do that?"

Jo's gaze remained absolutely steady. "How can we not?"

_Monday morning, Tesla High School_

"These numbers look funky," Dre said, frowning down at the data pad.

Kevin peered over his shoulder. "Yeah. They do."

Sophie looked up from her own pad. "I think it's a glitch in the connection, and not the data. Look," she pointed at the pad Dre and Kevin were sharing, "the base number is reporting steadily, it's only the trace aluminum read that's screwy."

"Ok. Yeah. I see that," Kevin nodded. "I'll text Tim, see if we can run the boat out after school."

Dre grinned. "I've got some ideas about overcoming the interference in the cave. And I think the earpieces can be configured for two-way communication. Pulses only from underwater, but still, better than nothing."

The five-minute warning bell rang, and they scattered for class. It occurred to Kevin, as he made his way down the hall to first period Chinese, that even if Tim couldn't get away, they didn't truly need him for this repair mission.

_Monday noon, Café Diem, Eureka_

Jo pushed the door open and ushered Steve and Cath into the lunchtime crush. They wended through the crowd to the booth Carter was holding for them, Jo explaining Café Diem and Vincent as went. "So, anyway," she finished, "it's not quite the wide-open menu it used to be, Vincent has a budget now just like everyone else, but still plenty amazing."

"Hey guys," Carter greeted them. "How is Detective Williams this morning?"

"Danny. Please, call him Danny," Steve said. "And he's feeling almost too good. Those painkillers they have him on convinced him that he's ready for solid food."

"Alison and Grace are big believers in bio-feedback," Carter said. "They prefer happy, even if slightly delusional, patients."

"He's so happy he's grumbling, which," Cath forced a chuckle, "is pretty happy, for Danny."

Carter looked at Jo, "Any word on the skin thingy?"

"Early test runs are promising," she answered, choosing to quote Henry. Zane had said the first test run was crap, and the second was only marginally better.

Vincent appeared then and engaged Cath and Steve with the day's specials. Which definitely included a curry. Jo'd been able to smell it from outside. While they spoke, Jo handed Carter the flash drive she'd prepared. "This is everything I have."

Carter nodded, pulling out a matching one. "Me too."

Once Vincent left with their orders, Carter cleared his throat. "So. About that 'anything you can do'. We have something we'd like you to look over."

He slid the two drives toward Steve and Cath while Jo took up their story. "You remember the group that grabbed Parish in Hawaii a year ago?"

"The Consortium," Steve nodded. "Yeah. Why?"

"We'd like to take them out."

"Our assault on their compound didn't do it?"

"No. Not even close." Jo shook her head firmly. "According to our sources, it's a very large organization. A thousand or more members, though that could include a lot of fairly passive intel sources, fellow travelers and sympathizers rather than committed agents. Also," and she frowned, "we know that it has reached far up into the federal government: Senators, Representatives, people in the NIH, the NIS and the CDC. We suspect they have connections high up in the military. And, probably, an international component. They certainly seem to have large budgets."

Which didn't alter their primary goal of stealing science and scientists first, developing and publicizing their own research a distant, vanishingly so, secondary aim. One of the many reasons Jo regarded their entire operation with contempt.

"Every effort we've made to pursue our investigations through 'proper channels'," Carter's expression was ugly with what Jo knew was years worth of frustration, "has been shut down. With extreme prejudice. We don't think the core group has even been damaged in a meaningful way, despite some substantial setbacks in the last few years."

"Some of them honestly believe that their group of 'brilliant thinkers' will be better able to direct and control scientific inquiry than anyone else. Beverly Barlow was one of those." She shared a side-eye snort with Carter. They had very similar, and equally low, opinions about the abilities of 'brilliant thinkers' to manage practical matters even for their own good, much less for anyone else. "Others," Jo lifted a shoulder, "others probably just see a power base."

Carter tapped the table by the flash drives. "We could use your help. We'd like to begin to build our own network to collect information on the Consortium. This is everything we have. We hope you'll be able to use it to create a framework for spotting any activity that they might be drawn to that crosses into your own areas of expertise."

Steve folded his arms and glared at Jo. "Be easier if we still had Toast."

Jo sighed. Steve had greeted the news about Five-O's computers with surprising equanimity, but started yelling when he got to the part about his local hacker buddy.

Danny's local hacker buddy. "No. It wouldn't," she said. "He wouldn't deserve to be caught in their cross hairs. And he would. It took us less than two hours to find him. The Consortium's IT people are, unfortunately, just as good as ours."

Steve scowled, but didn't say anything else. Largely because there was nothing else to say. So Jo returned to their main topic. "In time, we'd like to pull the Consortium's teeth, but for now we just need to learn a lot more about who they are."

Steve and Cath exchanged a lengthy glance, not debating whether or not they would take the job so much as their attitude about it Jo suspected, when Steve looked back at them. "This is a very long term project."

"The Consortium was born in the late 1940s. They have a sixty-five year head start. We know we won't catch up any time soon. But it is past time to begin," Jo replied.

Steve frowned thoughtfully, "Do you think…"

Jo cut him off before he could say Mansfield's name, though she and Carter had already speculated on this. Senator Wen and the Consortium had managed to completely shut Mansfield down three years ago. There was no way he was happy about that, even if he was back as the primary Washington DC conduit to Eureka now.

Sending Steve McGarrett and Catherine Rollins to them might have been a simple kindness for Danny's sake, but Mansfield wasn't a kind man. On the other hand, he was the sort of man who had not only pulled Zane out of prison, but, despite deep personal animosity and endless provocation, had kept him in Eureka. He'd done so because he believed that Zane was a talent too great to lose. 'Recruiting' other new assets in a variety of ways was fully within Mansfield's capabilities. Hell, she wouldn't put it entirely past Mansfield not to have known about the hacker named Toast when he offered Eureka's coordinates to Steve.

"I think better intelligence is the first step," she said.

Cath reached out and scooped up the drives. "Intelligence is our game. We can do this."

Jo smiled. Not in relief, because she had known they would agree, but because it felt so damn good to be taking positive steps at last.

_Monday, mid-afternoon, Lake Archimedes_

"Kev? Are you sure this a good idea?" Connor asked, for what felt to Kevin like the billionth time.

"Yeah. Dude. It's fine." The outboard roared to life, and he throttled back. "We have to fix the feeds today, or our project is going to suck tomorrow."

Dre untied the bowline while Sophie got the stern free and climbed in. Kevin pushed them away from the dock. Sophie looked at Connor and said, "Dre signed the boat and the dive equipment out. We're cool. We aren't actually breaking any rules right now."

Kevin shifted the engine into gear. "Maybe that's why it feels weird!"

They all laughed as he slowly increased their speed.

_Monday afternoon, RI Infirmary_

Steve sat quietly beside Danny, holding his hand and listening as Dr. Blake and Dr. Deacon explained the finer details of surgery they were planning.

The latest test runs on the new polymer skin had satisfied everyone. Or, satisfied Deacon and Blake enough, given the continued urgency of Danny's condition. While he was much better right now, it wouldn't hold. They wanted to operate first thing in the morning. They had started printing Danny's new kidneys earlier in the day today, and they would be ready in good time as well.

Dr. Blake and her team all seemed competent, not that Steve had any way to judge, but this was their gamble. The doctors in Las Vegas had written Danny off three days ago, and had offered nothing but morphine for the pain and a short, ugly life tethered to machines. Eureka, and their freshly invented skin tissue-bandage thingy, was the only alternative they had.

"Here," Zane walked in, rolling a small cart. "I brought you a sample."

With small tongs, he lifted a square of what looked like old, patchily stained linen from a small pan of clear liquid. He shook it gently, and then held it up. "This is what it looks like."

He nodded at Catherine, who was closest to him. "Go ahead. You can touch it. We aren't going to use this piece."

"Wow," Carter said, leaning forward as Cath gingerly caught the edge and ran it tentatively through her finger and her thumb. "That looks exactly like what they put on me. " He looked at Cath, "May I?"

Cath nodded, and dropped her hand. Carter repeated her gesture, nodding the whole time. "Feels the same too," he said. "Like a really wet sheet."

He stepped back, and Zane rolled the cart closer so that Danny could do the same.

Then it was Steve's turn to feel the strange new, what, fabric? He agreed with Carter's assessment. It did feel like a wet sheet, but it also had the faintest hint of heft. Almost, but not quite, like the springiness and stretchiness of a wet suit.

_Monday afternoon, Lake Archimedes_

"Okay. Seriously," Connor thrust out his jaw, his pale hazel eyes bright and his cheeks and nose wind-chapped in the weak afternoon sunlight on the choppy, open water. "If your feedback pulses stop, I'm going to ask you to come back up. If you don't, I'm going to panic and call the sheriff."

"Connor," Kevin fist bumped his shoulder, "We got this. One pulse for yes, two pulses for no, three for trouble. Chill."

He sucked in the breather, and tapped the pulse feed on his earpiece. A loud squeal erupted from Connor's monitors. Kevin gave him thumbs up, adjusted his facemask and flipped off the edge of the boat, Dre and Sophie close behind him.

They sank through the upper levels side by side, fins moving gently to take them down the lead line of the buoy that marked the FLUME frame.

Connor was monitoring their depth using the trackers on their watches, and calling the meters. Kevin suspected this was mostly so he didn't feel alone out in the open boat, but he obediently hit his pulse for yes each time they sank another meter as marked by the lead chain.

It turned out Sophie had been right, two of the couplings on the data feeds had come loose, and fixing them was the work of moments.

"Great! Guys! The data reads are coming through loud and clear now. We've got this nailed, dudes! And, hey, I'm running against the data from five years ago right now and there are changes that are beyond what we predicted!" There was a long pause, then "Oh. Right. Yes or no questions only! Are you psyched, or what?"

It was impossible to laugh underwater with a breather, but Dre's finger twirling next to his head amounted to the same thing. They all hit their pulses one, long, and hopefully loud screech. Connor's yelp seemed to indicate they had been successful.

Then Dre pointed to the cave opening and Kevin and Sophie nodded, all of them pulling the lights from their belts before kicking off in a new direction.

_Monday afternoon, Infirmary_

Danny was still investigating the fabric-skin-polymer stuff, running it through his fingers. As it dried it was beginning to resemble one of those self-adhesive, crepe-like, ace bandages. He was only half listening as Catherine and Steve, well mostly Catherine, asked Allison Blake more questions about the surgery. In theory he cared a great deal about what was going to happen when these Eureka doctors re-opened his gut. But he had seen the bloody gunk that was coming out of the shunt the last surgeons had left in. He could feel his body weakening by the hour. So in practice, he really couldn't find the energy to stay interested. Either this worked, or it didn't. He just wished he could see Gracie again.

Good thing he had Steve and Catherine, both of them, here to care passionately for him.

Which, hey now, perhaps there was something else they could do for him. "Um, Guys? Would one of you call Rachel, let her and Grace know what's going on? You know, best you can given all the…." he waved his hand listlessly, to indicate all the security agreements they'd signed in the last twenty four hours. They were overdue to let Rachel know what was going on. Cath and Steve had told her enough to keep her from sending the FBI after them for kidnapping, but there was no way she'd wait indefinitely. He also made his best 'I am very, very sick, help me,' sad face, just to encourage them. "Please?"

Steve and Catherine looked at Danny, then at each other. Steve lifted his eyebrows in a question, then held up his fist. Catherine nodded. Steve counted to three and her paper covered his rock. She grinned triumphantly.

"Two out of three?" Steve asked.

"Nope," she shook her head. "Wasn't the deal."

"But, you do so much better, talking to Rachel. You know, woman to woman." Steve tried out his puppy-dog eyes.

Which cut no ice with Cath. "Really, Steve? That's where you want to go?"

Steve crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders. There might have been some lower lip pouting action as well. "She'll just yell at me again, remind me that this is all my fault."

"It's how she processes stress and worry, that's all. Just let it wash over you, take it in, breathe it out, and once she's done, it's over. And that way she won't yell later." Catherine looked at Danny and winked.

He appreciated the gesture. Turning managing Rachel into a lighthearted game was one of the best things Cath had done for him. Done for them. And he appreciated the touch of 'later.' He really hoped there would be one. He wanted to see his daughter again.

He batted his eyelashes, doing his best to play his part. "Yeah."

Cath looked back at Steve. "Besides, I think that kind of generous and understanding gesture is sexy. Very sexy."

"How sexy?" Steve cocked his head, considering.

Catherine put her hand on his arm and purred, "Very, very sexy."

"Me too! Oh, yes. I think so too!" Danny added, seriously appreciating the effort they were putting in, but struggling a bit to substitute bedroom eyes for sick sad face. Judging by Cath's twitching lips and Steve's grimace, he was not entirely successful.

"You are monsters, both of you," Steve said as he pulled out the phone he'd been lent and headed for the waiting area.

Catherine looked back at Danny and grinned. "Kinda want to scratch behind his ears, don't you?"

"Next to Gracie, of all the women in the world, you are closest to my heart." He'd meant to make it a humorously exaggerated declaration. By the time he got it past his tongue, he was absolutely sincere.

"Which makes me a very lucky woman, Danno." She bent and brushed a kiss to his cheek, heartfelt and genuine, all effort at humor banished.

Her lips were there and gone, a butterfly wouldn't have been softer, or more cherished.

Who could have known that in agreeing to share Steve, he'd gain two relationships, rather than the thin half of one he had feared when Steve first proposed it?

Steve had been ridiculously, gloriously happy not to have to trade one of them for the other. He could have, and hold, and love them both and he had been positively giddy with relief. And he had been very eager to demonstrate just how very grateful he was, too. That honeymoon period had been, well, really fucking incredible. Made Danny smile, just thinking of it.

In fact, Steve had floated around for months, a big, goofy, shit-eating grin on his face that even his mother and her endless drama couldn't wipe away. His buoyancy had been enough to hold them all up when the going got rough, times when he or Cath might have been tempted to throw it over as a valiant but futile attempt to forge a different kind of relationship.

Neither one of them could bear to disappoint him, though, or be responsible for him loosing another person he loved.

When he and Catherine realized they shared that, the last pieces of their particular puzzle clicked into place. He and Catherine weren't lovers. Together with Steve they formed a triad, not a threesome, in the rare instances someone insisted on a label. So far from being the competition he feared, she had become his ally, his friend, his confidant, his sounding board, sometimes even his best critic.

Especially when it came to dealing with Rachel. Steve usually wanted to go all in – guns blazing, dress uniform and shiny-medals-to-court all in. Catherine helped him, helped them, find another way. From little things, things he had known once and then forgotten, like letting Rachel finish venting stress _before_ attempting to deal with the problem, to very big things, like helping Danny understand that it didn't matter where they lived, Grace would always be his daughter. So he had manned up and worked out a deal with Rachel that allowed her and the kids to go be with Stan, and Danny and Grace began to rack up business-travel like airline miles.

Which, full circle, was how and why he'd been alone and careless in Vegas, certain that bad things happened to them, to him, only in Hawaii.

_Monday late-afternoon, Lake Archimedes_

The cave was fricking huge! As they played their lights along the walls, Kevin guessed that the floor of it had to be near the size of a full basketball court. The ceiling was only about fifteen feet high at the highest point, closer to six or eight feet most other places. The floor was rolling sand with scattered rocks; whatever lake vegetation might have grown here before Nathan and Jack had shot lava into the lake was long since gone. The walls were amazingly smooth. It was as though the lava had caught a huge gas bubble and formed around it as it fell to the cold bottom of the lake.

They could hear Connor in most of the cave, though it was harder the further in they went. To keep him from hyperventilating, they stayed where he could be reassured by their steady, single pulse, 'yeses' in response to his 'can you still hear me's?'

_Monday late-afternoon, Infirmary_

"Hey, Danny," Catherine's cool fingers brushed his forehead, "you still with us?''

"Yeah," he dragged his eyes open and forced a smile. He hadn't even realized he'd zoned out there for a minute. "I'm here. Haven't got the energy to move much, to tell you the truth."

"You okay with all this?" She gestured around the infirmary, which he took to be a stand in for the surgery and the seat of the pants solution Zane had Dr. Frankenstien'ed together in his lab. Seriously, who decides, 'oh, hey, I'll just invent some new skin to help out a friend'? Other than mad scientists, obviously.

"More than okay." He squeezed her fingers. "Really. I'm just glad you guys got me here." He looked for Zane, who was over huddling with Blake and Deacon. "Here," he called. "Here's your miracle organic bandage thing. It better work."

"Or?" Zane raised a mocking brow as he took back the sample piece.

"Or I'll…" he started to say 'haunt you,' but that felt like jinxing and he was fumbling for a suitable threat when a truly evil idea hit him. "Or, you will have to name your kid after me. Daniel or Danielle Donovan. Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?"

Zane looked so horrified, Danny started to snicker. Zane's mouth worked, but no sound emerged. Danny started to giggle.

Steve, who had returned in time to overhear, leaned in to add, "Double D Donovan. It definitely has a ring."

Zane's glare could've blistered skin, and now Steve and Danny were both laughing at him, Danny laughing so hard his gut hurt, but he couldn't stop. Zane rendered speechless in horror was the funniest thing in, like, weeks.

"Son of a bitch," Zane finally choked out an embarrassed laugh. "I will hold your guts together with my bare hands to avoid that."

"Hey now," Jo had arrived and slipped her arm around his waist. "I think Danielle Lupo is a nice name. But," and she smiled at Danny, "I have faith we won't need to use it."

_Monday, late-afternoon, Lake Archimedes_

Kevin checked his watch and saw they had only been in the cave about five or six minutes, and they had plenty of time to try for a sample of the smooth rock face. He pulled the small hammer from his tool kit and tapped it experimentally against the wall about fifteen feet back from the entrance. It made an odd sound, there was a cracking noise, and then a sheet of rock detached from the wall above the entrance and slowly slid down across it, crumpling like glass as it smashed into the sandy floor. Several more sheets crashing down along the edges of the cave followed.

Once the sand and dust had settled enough for them to see again, horror crawled up Kevin's back and settled in between his eyes. The whole cave was visibly smaller than it had been before and the entrance was full of rock shards. Only a small opening was still visible toward the top.

He knew it was only his heart thudding inside his head, but all he could think was 'Drums! Drums in the deep! We're trapped, and we can't get out!'

Almost as one, the three of them raised their hands to tap three pulses.

_Monday, late-afternoon, Rockwell Industries Rotunda_

Jo hastened her steps, calling, "Carter. Jack!"

Jack pretended he didn't hear her, but from the way his pace picked up she knew he had. "Carter!" she bellowed.

Jack's footsteps slowed and he drifted to a stop, turning reluctantly to face her, all false cheer in his voice as he said, "Jo! Hi! I guess I didn't hear you."

"You heard me." She folded her arms. "Why did Zane put you on our home security?"

"Shouldn't you be asking him that?"

"Oh. I will."

Not like she didn't already know. She did. He wanted someone else to be able to get in. She hadn't been ready for that. Yet. So her purpose here wasn't to solve some mystery, it was to remind Jack that in any dispute between her and Zane, the only correct side for him to choose was none, or, worst case, hers. She fixed him with her best glare. "Right now I'm asking you."

"Come on, Jo. You have to know why. He didn't want to leave town with no one able to get in to your house but you."

"I'm pregnant, not incapacitated!" She'd forgotten that Jack had some of the same instincts.

"And, if you became incapacitated, what then?"

She scowled. She and Zane had been having this argument for two months. Women did not become incapacitated in the first trimester. Or the second. Well, okay, some did. But she had not. She hadn't even puked.

That her pregnancy was going swimmingly so far actually seemed to be freaking him out more. He kept insisting that this was Eureka and nothing went smoothly and that they needed to plan accordingly.

She'd told him to pull out his plans for surviving the zombie apocalypse and revise as he saw fit.

He told her it wasn't a game.

And so it went. She knew, long term, that he was right. Knew that she'd do almost everything he wanted because it was all prudent, sensible precaution. That it was all in preparation for her losing control of the situation by going into labor and bringing a new person into their lives, well, she was just going to have to get over that. One of these days.

But all of that was no reason for Zane to make an end run to get his way now. Or for Carter to help him. It felt like cheating. She didn't like cheating. She narrowed her eyes. "Why you?"

"Is there really anyone else you'd rather choose?"

"Grace! Or Tanya Zimmer." Or basically anyone who wasn't some man towering over her in a fit of unwelcome, utterly aggravating, over-protectiveness.

"Zimmer? Your crazy builder?"

"One. She's not crazy. Two. She has little kids of her own, and we've become friends."

"She's married?"

"No! But she and Eric Ramsey have been together for years. How do you not already know this?" She flung up her arms in exasperation.

He made a face. "I do, I just forget. They're such an odd couple. He's so…" Jack opened his eyes wide and waved his hands around his head, "Hey man! Peep-it!," he sing-songed, "and she's so…." Jack narrowed his eyes, thrust out his chin, frowned exaggeratedly and put his hands on his hips, "Don't fuck with me, asshole." He dropped his hands and straightened up. "So weird. I just don't get it."

"Really." Jo crossed her arms again and raised her brows, even as she smirked at his dead-on impersonations. "I'm just going to let you think about that one for a second, Jack."

His brow creased in thought, and then his faced cleared. With a grin, he waved it aside. "But, still. Why her or Grace and not me? I thought I was your best friend!"

"Jack! You are!" Jo declared. "But you agreed to help Zane, then betrayed him to me as soon as you could find a reason. If you don't want to pick sides, don't. If you do, stick to your deals."

Jack looked startled, then confused. "I thought you would be mad at me for helping him, not for letting you know what he did!"

"Oh. I'm plenty mad at you for both. I'm complicated like that."

Before Jack could figure out a response to that, his phone rang.

"What? Where?" Carter stilled, his whole frame suddenly coiled with what Jo recognized as pre-action tension.

"Slow down, Connor. Tell me exactly what happened."

"Connor?" Jo whispered, stepping towards Carter, "are the kids okay? Is Kevin okay?"

Carter looked up and met her eyes. He mouthed, 'no,' and continued to listen intently on his phone.

_Monday, late-afternoon, Section Three Lab_

Zane frowned as he ran the polymer fabric back and forth through his fingers. The texture was wrong. It wasn't behaving the way he thought it was supposed too, based on Henry and Fargo's descriptions.

He pulled up the formula and re-checked the equations, comparing them to the original specs. They'd obviously over-compensated somewhere, and he had some ideas about that, but he wanted more eyes than his own on the numbers. He emailed the whole to Fargo, with the subject line: "HELP!"

After that he stood up and headed out. He needed to find Henry and the rest of the team.

_Monday, late-afternoon, Rockwell Industries Rotunda_

"So, let me get this straight, Connor," Carter was saying, "In the process of setting the FLUME-prototype on the lakebed, you guys found an underwater cave and decided to go exploring?"

Jo pulled out her phone, searching rapidly for the lake rescue number.

"And now they've signaled that they are in trouble, and that they can't get to the surface?" Carter nodded, "Okay. Sit tight Connor, keep talking to your team, I'll call you right back."

Carter looked at Jo. "Did you get that?"

"I did. Underwater rescue. I'm mobilizing Lake Rescue now." She looked up from her phone. "We should ask Steve McGarrett to lead the mission. Lake Rescue is more about boating accidents than underwater caves."

"McGarrett?"

"SEAL? Underwater rescue is one of their things?"

Carter looked oddly bewildered. Jo smiled sympathetically at him. "Yeah, Carter. I'm telling you that you don't have to suit up for this one. Let him be the big damn hero this time."

He nodded, still looking a bit off balance and self-conscious. "Okay."

Jo gripped his arm reassuringly. "Just this one time. Promise." She turned to head for her office, then she paused and looked back over her shoulder, trying to remember Jack's history. "Do you even know how to scuba dive?"

Jack flushed a little, "No! But when have I let that kind of thing stop me?"

Jo shook her head at him. "Right. Also, find Zane. He can establish direct communication."

_Monday, late-afternoon, Section Three Lab_

The voice of a frightened teenager filled the room, though he was trying very hard to stay calm. He explained that Kevin, Sophie and Dre had signaled from an underwater cave that they were in trouble and couldn't get out. They had something less than twenty-five minutes of air remaining.

No, he didn't know why Tim McAdams wasn't with them today, or where he was.

But he was very excited about their preliminary results.

Steve shook his head at the loss of focus. Though he couldn't help being a little impressed that the kid could still keep one eye on the scientific ball. Must be something in the food here.

And a certain blasé attitude about emergencies also seemed to be part of the diet. He remembered that was one of the early things he had noticed about Jo and Zane, the way they stayed calm and responsive when confronted by crisis.

Zane muted the connection and looked up. "It sounds like someone, some people, are going to have to go down and get them." He turned to a big flat screen and brought up the map of the lakebed. "Here. This is where the lava spill created new underwater terrain, this," he pointed to the blinking red lights, "is where the boat and buoy are, and these," he tapped a small dark area with three bright green lights, "are the signals from Kevin, Sophie and Dre's beacons. This is where the cave is."

"I've contacted the limnologist," Deacon's voice preceded him as he and Allison Blake came through the door. "He took early retirement a year ago, but is on his way in. He says the lava formations are unstable, and have been slowly collapsing since Nathan and Jack shot the magma into the lake."

Steve looked at Carter and mouthed, 'limnologist?'

Carter shrugged. Clearly he had never heard that one before either.

Catching the interaction, Zane smiled fleetingly at them. "A limnologist studies lakes." He turned back to the map, gesturing toward the little group of red and green lights. "I've been down there about once a year, and the flows have changed shape every time." As he turned for the door, he added, "So I'll go with the diving team, I know right where they are."

Steve thought a small bomb would have triggered less disruption to the smooth flow of crisis response.

Allison Blake cried, "No! Zane! You can't risk it!" almost simultaneously with Deacon's exclamation, "No, Zane! That's impossible. We can't allow you to do that."

"What?" Zane looked bewildered. "There's no risk! I re-certified just last summer, diving right where the kids are."

"Right. And then, last fall, you got a new heart and new lungs," Allison said. "You cannot subject them to the pressure, not forty feet down, and definitely not while exerting yourself at that depth."

"Why not? I've passed every physical you've given me with flying colors!"

"At normal pressures. If something were to go wrong, underwater, we would have another crisis on our hands in addition to rescuing the kids!" Deacon said.

"That's ridiculous!" Zane's voice rose with his frustration.

"Zane, no," Deacon repeated. "The risk is too great."

"It's my risk!"

"No. It isn't. We can't allow you to compromise the study."

"Seriously?" Zane glared at Deacon, "You're going to pull that?"

Steve had the same reaction, was about to expostulate on Zane's behalf because if he already knew the area his presence could be crucial, and caught himself up short. He realized that this was exactly what Carter and Jo had warned them about. Even in the face of three kids who could be seriously injured, possibly die, one of them Dr. Blake's own son, the research that Zane's heart represented would come first. And he had no say in it at all.

One look at the director's face, and Steve was quite certain that Deacon would shove Zane in a locked cell if he didn't have any other way to control him.

"Yes." Deacon folded his arms uncompromisingly across his chest. "I am. You agreed to those terms."

"Henry!"

"Zane!" Allison tried again, "Listen to yourself! You can't do this! You can't risk yourself like this. Not now!"

"Allison! It's my choice!"

Allison stepped closer to Zane, her eyes blazing with some powerful emotion Steve couldn't indentify or source. "No it isn't!" her voice was hard and angry, and getting louder as she spoke, "It's NOT just you anymore. It's Jo, and your baby too. You have no right to jeopardize yourself like this for no good reason. Not even for Kevin, Dre and Sophie. Not when there are plenty of other people who can deal with this."

Zane rocked half a step back, started to respond, then after holding Allison's eyes for a long beat, let his breath out on a shaky sigh. "That was low, Allison."

"Okay!" Carter exclaimed, obviously uncomfortable with all the heightened emotion zinging about. He turned to Steve, "You're with me, McGarrett. Zane," he waved in his direction, "you set up ops and coordinate with Jo and the kids. Let's move, people!"

_Monday, late-afternoon, Lake Archimedes_

"Kevin? Pulse once if you can hear me."

Kevin had never been so glad to hear Zane's voice. He pulsed once, and offered Dre and Sophie thumbs up.

"Okay. I've got control of Connor's computer now, and in another minute or two you'll be broadcasting to the whole rescue team. You'll be able to hear me, and Commander McGarrett, who is leading the rescue mission. Right now, I want you three to stay still, practice conservation breathing and use only one light. Understood?"

Kevin pulsed once, and flipped off his flashlight.

"Your mom says you learned the Z code ACP 131 last year. Do you still remember any of it?"

Kevin grinned around his breather and hit the pulse once more. Not only did he remember it, he'd learned it with Sophie, who was nodding enthusiastically.

"Great. I'm going to ask you a series of questions, then give you the code to use when you answer. Got it?"

Dre held the light while Kevin and Sophie did their best in the limited binary code to explain what had happened to the ceiling of the cave.

_Monday, late-afternoon, Docked Research and Rescue Boat "Pytheas"_

"Here you are, Commander," Deputy Andy came to a stop beside the gangway, effortlessly swinging up three full oxygen tanks. Another reminder that he was not as human as he appeared at first glance. "All checked out by yours truly. Everything is A-Okay and ready to go."

"Thanks, Andy."

"And here's the rest of the squad!" Deputy Andy turned and began the round of introductions to four members of the RI security team with extensive scuba experience. As with most of the RI security personnel Steve had met before, the two men and two women had military backgrounds. It was easy to establish a working camaraderie.

Jo came striding down the dock, her suit jacket traded for a heavy fleece with an RI logo on the breast.

"Ready to go?" she called as soon as she was close enough to be heard over the breeze that was picking up the chop on the water.

The ride to the buoy was short and fast, and bumpy.

On the way Steve and the rest were quiet as they listened to Zane and Dr. Harrison, the retired limnologist, draw more information out of Kevin and Sophie. By the time they arrived they had a pretty good picture of what they were going to find, and Steve was impressed and relieved that the trapped kids had made use of their communications equipment rather than trying to dig themselves out.

Dr. Harrison made it clear that the lava beds were really much closer to shale and sandstone than basalt. This was part of why they were eroding and changing relatively speedily. He also warned that the cave was likely to crumble completely if it was jarred too much.

_Monday, late-afternoon, Lake Archimedes_

"Kevin? Dre? Sophie?" A new voice came online. "This is Commander McGarrett. We met at Carter's bunker, at Sarah, last night. We're about to enter the water. I want you to come as close as you can to the entrance and without touching anything, shine all three of your lights through the opening."

Kevin, Sophie and Dre looked at each other and then began swimming gingerly toward the rock pile at the entrance. Shinning their lights out of the small opening at the top made sense, but it made the rest of the cave very, very dark.

Kevin did not look over his shoulder for the Balrog that had not plunged with Gandalf to the bottom of Lake Archimedes.

_Monday, late-afternoon, Section Three Lab_

With the rescue now in Steve's extremely capable hands, Zane pulled off his earpiece and turned to Henry and Allison. Holding up the fabric, he said, "We have a problem."

Henry nodded. "I know. I ran into Cho on the way down."

"Adhesions," Zane said, for Allison's benefit. He went on, "I think we overcompensated for how quickly it dissolved before."

"Oh dear," Allison took the fabric, which had crumpled in on itself as it dried, and attempted to pry apart the folds. The fabric ripped easily, too easily, even in her gentle hands.

"But the margin between this and the original is less than two percent!" Henry rubbed his chin, scowling furiously.

"Yeah," Zane sighed. "Cho and Walker are cooking up some new test batches, aiming for the middle, but I've been talking with Rojas, and we think we might do better to work up a lubricant and a glue, and layer the repair."

"I can modify a surgical glue, I think, and under the bandage it should be able to do it's job without sticking to anything else. But do we have a lubricant we can modify in time?" Allison tended to wave her hands a lot as she thought aloud, and Zane dodged around her to pull a pile of tools safely out of her reach. "It would need to be non-toxic," she went on, "and dissolve inside the abdominal cavity at the same rate that the polymer absorbs into Danny's healing intestine, but no faster."

"Believe it or not, Parish thinks Tim McAdams has something that might work," Zane said.

"The same Tim that was helping Kevin and the kids with their project?" Allison looked surprised. "He's not in medical applications, is he?"

"No. But he has done a lot of work with Parish's limacoids and his dormancy gels, using them as models and lubricants for his flexible submersibles. Who knew banana slugs could be so versatile for research? Besides Parish, I mean."

Henry cleared his throat and Zane refocused. "Tim adapted the dormancy gels as lubricants to work with his submersibles. He's all about saving the earth," Zane rolled his eyes. Not because he thought that was a silly concern, but because McAdams had never seemed to believe that most of the rest of Eureka was on his side. He'd been kind of a self-righteous douche about it more than once. "So he's been working to find environmentally neutral agents."

"Have you talked with him?" Henry asked.

"That's another problem. He's not answering his phone, and security tells me he checked out before noon."

_Monday, late-afternoon, Lake Archimedes_

Steve dropped below the choppy surface of the water next to the buoy marking the location of the kids' science project. The rest of the team followed in quick succession.

He spun slowly in the faintly brownish water, an overcast sky flattening and decreasing visibility, trying to find the light trail that would lead them to the cave entrance.

Cold, wet tendrils of worry snaked their way around his guts. And not because there was anything wrong with his very high quality dry suit.

Because he couldn't see any lights.

He gestured for the team to form a rough circle around the buoy chain and begin their descent; eyes peeled 360 as they swam in a downward spiral.

He was so busy staring into dark shadows he nearly swam on top of the team member in front of him. She was stopped and pointing to a faint yellow trail of light.

The tendrils of worry promptly expanded into vines, twisting around his lungs.

Why hadn't they considered a rockslide on the outside of the cave as well?

Because they had one.

He could just make out what had to be the cliff-like outer wall Connor had reported the kids seeing. Rising behind a twenty-foot spill of shattered shale, almost ten feet high at its highest point.

The faint light trail did not, thank God, originate from the highest portion of the spill.

But it looked like they were going to have to dig about five feet to even get to what had been the outer wall of the cave.

The kids were going to have to start moving rocks on the inside, or they'd never get to them on time.

_Monday, late-afternoon, Research and Rescue Boat "Pytheas"_

"Holy shit." Jo swore under her breath.

The camera on Steve's facemask was giving them all a very clear view of the rapidly approaching pile of rubble he and his team were going to have to shift.

Kevin and Dre had barely five minutes of air left each. Sophie had only slightly more.

"Kevin?"

Jo jumped when she heard Steve's voice through the monitors. She'd momentarily forgotten that he was using a full facemask with a communications system.

Kevin beeped once.

"You, Dre and Sophie are going to have to start moving rocks away from the entrance on the inside. Do just like Dr. Harrison said. One rock at the time, in a chain. Don't drop them. Place them down. We have a pile on the outside we're going to have to shift too."

_Underwater cave, Lake Archimedes_

Swimming directly for the light streaming out of the mound of tumbled rocks, the rest of the squad fanning out behind him, Steve searched for the least disruptive direction to start tossing rocks.

Now that he was seeing the underwater terrain with his own eyes, it was obvious that these formations were not part of the original lakebed. The newer magma rocks were of a visibly different color and texture from the dark granite and rocky sand of the lakebed. They overlay the older, sharper rocks in shapes that looked like the sand drip castles he made on the beach with Gracie a few years ago, before she got too tween-ish to play in the sand.

Once they reached the cave entrance he directed his team to form two, short chains, while the fifth held the lights. Dr. Harrison had cautioned them to be gentle, lest they dislodge the entire structure.

But they were fighting the clock and it was impossible to be as careful as the slippery pile demanded. About every third rock shard crumbled at the touch. The whole pile trembled as bits and pieces tumbled down.

_Monday, late-afternoon, Research and Rescue Boat "Pytheas"_

Jo was barely breathing herself, her eyes glued to the timer that was counting down the last minutes of breathable air the kids had. She knew – in her head – that her using less oxygen, up here where there was plenty of it, gave nothing more to the kids. But her lungs weren't listening.

The rest of the deck crew were as silent as she was, all of them straining against the hard reality that there was nothing more they could do.

It was up to Steve and his team. And to the kids themselves.

_Monday, late-afternoon, Lake Archimedes _

After two minutes, Steve gave up and started digging with two hands, pulling rocks out and away without regard for consequences. Two other team members followed his lead. They had three minutes to slip new breathers in or the kids were dead anyway.

Fortunately, the opening didn't have to be that big. At least to start with. The new breathers RI had developed were impossibility small. They looked to Steve's skeptical eye like five-minute emergency breathers, but, here were the three kids, still breathing, for the moment. They really did seem to offer at least forty-five minutes of breathable air each.

There had been an explanation, something about a chemical screen that reacted with the water passing through a filter that pulled a breathable air mixture out of the lake itself, but in this case, seeing was believing. Two of Jo's team were using the new breathers, the other two had gone with old-school tanks like Steve.

At last he reached the original face of the cliff wall. "Kevin? Can you reach your arm through the opening?"

Two of his team refocused their lights on the opening, giving Kevin something to reach for.

For a long, hideous second he couldn't see anything at all. Then, at last he saw fingers.

"Okay. I'm putting a tank in your hand. Just like on an airplane, fix your own tank first."

_Monday, late-afternoon, Research and Rescue Boat "Pytheas"_

The crowded bridge rocked with the sound of cheers.

_Monday, late-afternoon, Lake Archimedes_

Steve passed two more breathers through the small opening. It was still a near thing, the seconds had trickled past zero and into negative numbers before they got the third one through. But the kids had each beeped that they were okay. For now.

In fifteen more minutes of much slower work, he and the rest had cleared a path and the three teens swam to safety. Two of the team escorted them to the buoy chain. Steve and the remaining members swam to a point about thirty feet away, then fired hastily modified spear guns at the whole rickety mound. The spears were loaded with small charges that were set to go off in two minutes.

They swam back to the FLUME, where they turned and waited with the rest for the charges to blow.

It reminded Steve of a building demolition, falling in on itself in a wash of sand and dust. He was incredibly thankful that the kids hadn't pulled it down on themselves before help arrived. They would never have gotten to them in time if they had.

After admiring their work a few minutes longer, and Sophie freeing herself from her 'helper' to swim down and check all the couplings on her precious FLUME devices, they began their own ascent.

_Research and Rescue Boat "Pytheas"_

Jo looked at the four shivering teenagers, three soaking wet and one who had spent too much time sitting in an open boat without warm enough gear, and didn't have the heart to ream them out. They had responded very well to the situation they found themselves in, and really, an underwater cave? How could they have resisted?

Which is why Steve and the team had collapsed it. Over the next few months she and her staff would be looking for and collapsing any others they found as well. Relying on the residents of Eureka NOT to explore such things was a losing proposition.

So she went right to her first question, handing over their phones as she spoke. "Have you spoken with Tim McAdams today at all? Or heard from him?"

_Monday, early evening, Tim McAdam's Lab, Section Five_

Zane ushered Catherine into McAdam's lab, calling out as they entered, "Grace? What do you think?"

Grace Monroe turned to face them, her face unhappy. "I think you're right. What's missing is too deliberate and too thorough to just be him planning to work at home." She shook her head in confusion, "but what I don't get is, why. Are his designs that good or especially unique?"

"No." Zane ducked his head and shrugged. "Okay. That's not entirely fair. His designs are innovative, but he's had trouble realizing a working prototype."

"What brought you in here?" Catherine asked.

Zane stared unhappily around the small room, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels. "Henry, me, Rojas, a few others, we searched McAdam's workstations. We were collecting everything we could find on his lubricants, which we need for Danny. That's when we realized he'd stripped everything about his submersibles."

Catherine pointed to the computer station. "Have you looked on his drives?"

"Not yet. I want to do that in IT, in case he has a wipe-out worm on there."

"Don't you back up data?"

"Of course. Or, at least, we're supposed to. But almost everyone has, or thinks they have, partitioned data, stuff they aren't ready to share."

"Is McAdams good enough to really have that, or only think he is?"

Zane smirked. "Only to think he is." He pulled the cords then picked up the computer tower and headed for the door. "I'll call as soon as I have anything."

Catherine looked at Dr. Monroe. "So, why did Zane ask you to take a look?"

Dr. Monroe smiled sadly. "I was a fellow traveler for a while. Passed information on RI, Global Dynamics back then, to the Consortium. In time I got disenchanted, disabused, really, of my notion that they had a better solution to the ethical problems we run into here on a daily basis. So I backed away. Later on, my activities came to light. I'm not in prison today only because of deals made by others." She shook herself, putting aside whatever regrets she lived with and turned to the room. "So, I have some sense of what they are looking for in spies. Tim McAdams is a good candidate."

"Why?"

"Young. Earnest. Wants to use science to build a better world. Anxious about working so closely with the DOD."

"So, why not turn down Eureka?"

"Because there is no where else like this. Generous budgets, blue-sky freedom to tackle, design and build things no one else would ever dream of authorizing. Colleagues who are among the best in the world at what they do."

"But if the cost is so high?"

"The Consortium appears to offer a third alternative. Instead of compromising by coming, or losing access by turning down the job, you can come here, take advantage of everything Eureka has to offer, and pass along your concerns to an apparently interested and sympathetic listener. Makes you feel special. In the know. Part of the solution, not part of the problem."

"Only, it's a scam."

"Yes. Or better, a con. Because once you're compromised they hold any number of swords over your head."

"And this McAdams kid?"

"He was recruited to RI by the oceanography group, which seems harmless enough, but then Zane's group won a DOD contract to develop flexible submersibles. Which should be quieter, harder to find, than the traditional kind. So Zane and Henry had him reassigned to Zane's section, which is normally considered a promotion. And believe or not, Zane runs a good division. People like working for him."

"I believe it." She did, too. She once worked demolition under Zane. He was a good boss.

"Which now seems entirely too coincidental, by the way. The DOD contract, I mean. And maybe everything about McAdams is as well."

"Yes. It does."

_Monday, early evening, Section Three Lab_

Her blood singing with the excitement of the hunt, Jo rushed into Zane's new lab. Steve was hard on her heels. "Did it work? Did you find McAdams?" she cried.

Zane looked up from the monitors. "Yep." He pointed to the map on his screen. "Found him at a gas station one town over. Least competent escape plan ever."

"Your DNA scanner is so awesome!" she crowed. Leaning over his shoulder to look at the blinking red dot that meant her quarry was in range, she took the opportunity to wrap her arms around his shoulders in a quick hug.

"Yes. It is." He met her gaze with a wink and a satisfied smile. "But now we're sure it's him, we've got satellite tracking on his car and his phone. Carter and Andy and a squad or more of your guys are already moving, and they called in the state patrol. I'm sure they'll have him within the hour."

She let go and spun for the door, calling to Steve, "Come on!"

Zane's voice stopped her cold. "Jo! No."

She looked back to see Zane on his feet, arms folded across his chest, his expression a complicated mix of determination and sympathy.

She ordered her guilty conscience back into hiding. "What?"

"We talked about this. Don't blow it the first time you have to make a choice."

She could not believe he had just thrown her own words back at her. Or, well, she could believe it. But, damn! That was harsh. "Zane!"

"Jo."

"But–"

He didn't let her finish. "I keep regular hours, you don't run into burning buildings. That's our deal."

Jo glared at him.

"Carter and Andy are already on their way. They'll have him in custody before you catch up. Driving fast on a rainy night on a two-lane mountain road is…"

"ARrrrgghhh!" she cut him off, not needing him to say it out loud for her. "Not necessary," she ground out.

That was their caveat. All other things being equal, preventing catastrophe took precedence. But being fourth or fifth car on the arrest of an unarmed geek clearly did not rise to that level, just as sleeping his lab while programs did their thing in the background did not either. She stamped her foot in frustration. "Damn it." God, how she hated irony.

"Foot stomping? Really?"

She met his eyes. "First car chase in, like, ever."

"And pouting?"

She drifted closer to him. "You like my pout."

He laughed at her. "Yes. Yes, I do." He caught her hand and pulled her closer, "I know. It's hard. We'll get through it."

She let him pull her all the way into his embrace, but so he didn't think she was giving in too easily, or forgetting that he was still teasing her, she said, "Jackass."

The effort was probably completely undermined by the way she tucked her head into his shoulder and wrapped her own arms around his waist. She didn't really care. It had started to rain again out on the lake, while they waited for all the divers to come back up, and the temperatures dropped further with dusk. As her adrenaline rush faded, her cold bones were impossible to ignore. Zane was warm and solid.

Steve cleared his throat. "I could drive?"

Zane pulled Jo closer. "Are you shitting me?"

"What?"

Jo, twisting in Zane's arms to see better, thought Steve did a remarkably lousy job of pretending he didn't know what Zane was talking about. Not that she'd done any better, she supposed.

"I've been in a car chase with you driving! No way you're driving Jo anywhere. If there was going to be any driving, Jo would be doing it, only there's not." He put his hands on her upper arms to hold her enough away from himself that he could catch her eyes. "Right?"

She sighed. "No." But, just for future reference, she added, "For now."

Turning reluctantly away from Zane, she apologized to Steve. "Sorry. I'm sure you'd like to be in on an arrest."

"Nah." Steve shrugged. "I don't think that McAdams guy is going to put up much of a fight."

"Want to help question him?"

Steve grinned. "Now that sounds like fun."

_Monday evening, Infirmary_

"Really!" Danny said, "Go back to Jo's. Rest up for tomorrow. I don't need you to sit some sort of bedside vigil. That would be creepy and wrong. And ghoulish. And make it impossible for me to sleep comfortably."

Steve and Catherine frowned at him.

"Are you sure?" Steve asked, for what Danny was certain was the eleventy-billionth time. Or the third. Whichever.

"Yes. I am absolutely sure."

The infirmary was an open ward, already too full of people and equipment and lights. On top of that, they had put him in a clear vinyl cave a few hours ago, to protect against new infection. But every time anyone went in or out the zipper zipped, the plastic creaked, the D-rings holding it to the frame clanked, in short it was driving him insane. And they all had to wear masks, which was more than a touch horror-movie like. Between all that and the utter lack of privacy – blue fabric screens only did so much – he just wanted to be left alone to prepare for tomorrow in peace.

"You led an underwater rescue, blew up a cave, and got in on questioning a suspect in a vast international conspiracy. That's plenty for one day." Danny shook his head in mock exasperation. Well, sort of mock exasperation, sort of real exasperation. "Go home. I'll see you tomorrow."

It took a few more back-and-forths before they finally believed him, but eventually he managed to shoo them away. This involved allowing them to come back well before dawn, before the pre-op process began, but that was fine. He knew he'd feel better going under if they were there while it happened. He just really needed a few hours to himself. Surely that wasn't too much to ask?

But he seemed destined for visitors tonight because Dr. Blake showed up hard on their heels for her last pre-op check. At least she exempted herself from mask-wearing.

After she fussed around with his temperature and his charts and some doctor-y questions, Danny cleared his throat, and said, "Did I hear you explain that my new kidneys are made in the same way Zane's heart and lungs are?

"Yes."

"So, I presume, that means no scuba diving for me, ever, as well, correct?"

"Certainly not any time soon, but we're very hopeful that as the body continues to incorporate the new organs over time, some of these precautions can be eased."

"No, no!" Danny hastened to assure her, "Never will be fine. Snorkeling is out, too, probably, yeah? Never can be too careful with water pressure, right?"

She seemed at last to understand him. With her arms crossed and an amused, sympathetic smile, she said, "Fine. I'll give you a doctor's note. No scuba and no snorkeling."

"So," he picked idly at the blanket, re-building his courage to ask, "you really think this will work?"

She eyed him thoughtfully, then replied, "I know the kidney transplant will go smoothly. The rest? I think it's an innovative solution but there hasn't been much time to test the polymer bandage. That's why we're going to do that part first, transplant second. Which will give us a few hours to see how the repair is holding before we close you up."

"That's a very nice way of saying you have no idea."

"Well," and she smiled that amazing smile again, "theoretically, it should work. And I have faith that it will."

_Monday evening, Jo and Zane's House_

"So, what made him panic and try to run?" Zane asked, handing beers to Steve and Cath before taking his own and dropping down on the smaller couch next to Jo. Steve and Cath were sprawled out on the larger one.

Jo nudged his arm up and scooted closer to curl up into his side, swinging her legs across his lap at the same time. "Believe or not," she answered, "Steve and Catherine showing up."

"You're joking!"

"Nope," Steve replied. "When we met last night at Carter's bunker he leapt to the conclusion that we were here to smoke him out."

"Jesus. Self-important much?"

Catherine laughed, Steve snorted and Jo growled, "He's twerp of the first order."

"What was he supposed to be doing? Besides irritating me by not finishing his designs on time or asking for help? Or loosing track of four reckless teenagers?"

"Like you suspected," Steve said, "he was trying to gather intel on the other Section Five projects while working slowly on his own so that he would have time to suss out your secrets."

Zane made a disgusted sound. "They can be so freaking conventional. Anything RI does could be weaponized, if there was a reason or need. One of the most potentially devastating things I've ever built is a construction mite, weighs less than a gram and is two centimeters long, and relatively speaking, cheap as hell to make. They're designed to do repair work on moon-based facilities, but four barrels full cranked to max and targeted at steel could take out a mid-sized city's infrastructure in two days. All the destruction of bombing, but no chemicals and no fallout." He paused and frowned, thinking. "But, you'd still have electrical fires and gas leaks. I wonder if I could write sub-routines to have them cut power and seal gas lines first…"

"Seriously, man, shut up." Steve held up his hand in a stop motion, "I really don't want the details of what you do. I'd like to sleep tonight. Danny's got a big day tomorrow."

Grinning ruefully, Zane shook himself out of his musing. He could get back to it later. "It's not all bad. The coolest science we've got going right now is in quantum physics, most of which will eventually be published, and bio-engineering, like printing kidneys. The current DOD stuff is all applications, making bendy, silent submarines, laser pistols, predictive, interactive interfaces, stuff like that. Fun, but not ground breaking work."

Which is part of why he and Henry had the IT staff running line-by-line reviews of the entire information systems network. Nothing heavy handed like the DOD's kill file, which wasn't foolproof in any case, but slow, painstaking systems analysis, looking for anything missing, or anything added. Jo would be gearing up to do the same for the entirety of RI's personnel files. Tim's awesome incompetence could be a cover for some other, cleverer scheme.

"When did they get to him?" Catherine asked.

"That part is more troubling," Jo sighed. "Between his job offer and his arrival. They've got good intel on our recruitment. Too good."

"They pitched to him about our caviler, world destroying ways?" Zane guessed.

"Yep." Steve looked up curiously, "Can you really destroy the world?"

"Yeah. Or, well, damage it pretty significantly. We've almost done it more than once, by accident." Zane shrugged. "And we wouldn't even need the stuff in my Section to do it. Though it would make it easier."

Steve shook his head. "It kills me the way you say that, like, it's just a part of the natural order of things. Oh, hey, didn't blow up the world today, what did you do for kicks?"

Zane tried not to let his grin get too big. "It is freaking cool, dude. Makes being owned by the DOD mostly tolerable."

"They really do, sort of, own you now. Don't they?"

"I'm chipped. Like a dog, man. They don't need anything as exotic as my DNA to find me. I had trackers, before, when I was on work release, but they were disabled when I was pardoned. The new ones are in my heart. The only way to disable them is for my heart to stop beating."

Steve winced. "That sucks."

"I have a cool job, a fantastic wife, a kid on the way, and every few months a chance to save the world. It could be worse." He had one of his rare, fleeting memories of prison. His arm tightened reflexively around Jo. "A lot worse."

"Will Danny's kidneys be chipped too?"

Zane looked at Cath and raised his brows in question. He'd actually watched them set the chips this afternoon, but he didn't want to be the one to answer Steve. After tomorrow, part of Danny would be property of RI, just like parts of him were. Better than the alternatives, but still. Creepy.

"Yeah, Steve. They will," she said. "His new organs are property of RI. He's a test subject. Among other things, they get them back as soon as he dies, for research purposes."

"Does Danny know?"

"It was all spelled out very clearly in the documents he signed. Yes. He knows."

They were all quiet then, watching the fire burn down. After the last log broke and fell into the coals, Steve said, "There was one other thing McAdams was supposed to be doing."

"What?"

"Recruiting Kevin Blake, if only by compromising him enough he'd be ineligible to come work here, making him vulnerable to their appeals later in life."

"Son of a bitch."

"Yeah."

"Was he trying to be pathetic, so Kev would feel sorry for him?"

To Zane's surprise, Jo stirred herself enough to answer. She'd been so still and warm against his chest, he'd thought she was asleep. "No. I think he really is that pathetic. What kind of dork waits almost a day to make up their mind to run in panic? He was trying to be their buddy."

"I think he was conflicted about that part, Jo, I really do," Steve insisted, carrying on some earlier argument.

"Such a waste." Zane shook his head and sighed, "His work is really promising. I think it will make the difference for Danny. It should scale, too, which means the path to commercialization could be comparatively short. If he weren't headed to prison, he'd have had a cut on the patents, and a hand in something that could really make a difference. All stuff he blathered about endlessly."

He shifted out from under Jo so he could stand up and hold out his hand. "Come on. Let's get you to bed."

_Tuesday evening, Café Diem_

"Hey baby," Kevin's mom's voice shook him out of his thoughts. "I am so proud of you."

She hugged him. Again.

Kevin hugged her back, repressing a sigh. Moms. "Mom. It's okay. We're fine. Everyone is fine."

He looked down into her bright, proud face and rolled his eyes. His gaze wandered across the crowd filling Café Diem near to bursting, landing squarely on Dre and Sophie. They were squished into the corner by the pay phone, making out like they'd never get enough.

"Near death experiences are pretty good for forcing emotions to the surface." His mom must have tracked his gaze. Her voice was low and sympathetic.

"Yeah." Kevin shrugged, trying for cool. "I'm glad. They've been dancing around each other long enough."

He didn't sound glad, and he knew it.

"Kevin…" his mom stopped, like she was reconsidering what she wanted to say.

"What?"

She was quiet for a moment more, then she asked, "Did Sophie know she had a choice?"

"What?" Even he heard how strangled that sounded.

"If she didn't know, well," she squeezed his arm in a way he knew was supposed to convey comfort, "then you can't blame her for taking what was freely offered."

Before Kevin could figure out how in the hell he was supposed to respond to that, his step-dad wandered over and clapped him on the shoulder, congratulating him, again, on his team's award.

He was getting a little tired of all the congratulating to be honest, but he smiled anyway, relieved to have a reason to sidle away from his mom. He knew she would be patient and understanding and all that shit, but, seriously, he'd rather have someone stick bamboo under his fingernails than discuss Sophie and Dre with her. With ANYONE. Ever.

He and his team hadn't won first place. That had gone to a group working on a seriously cool gene-splicing project. But they had won the Innovative Design for Contemporary Problems Award. Part of that included a scholarship to the University of Oregon, which could be split or not as the team decided.

Connor was positively floating.

Kevin, on the other hand, was stuck in the weird place of knowing that they were actually pretty fucking lucky to have won even that prize. Which they had won as much due to notoriety, nearly dying in an underwater cave and being rescued by a genuine Navy SEAL was pretty thrilling stuff, as much as the success of their FLUME platform. Their project was excessively fine. Fine. Solid. Important tools for future research. Blah, blah, blah. Fine. Research-grant worthy maybe. But not award worthy. It made his skin itch.

He found Zoe at a booth, deep in conversation with Jo. It sounded suspiciously like nursery decorating plans, what with words like 'blue' and 'yellow' and 'Zane hates baby themed borders' so he interrupted them by nudging Zoe to scoot over enough for him to sit down. "How's McGarrett's partner? Danny? Heard anything yet?"

"Didn't you ask your Mom?" Zoe gave him an annoyed look. "You were just talking with her."

"I forgot."

Zoe frowned at him, but before she could say anything Jo answered his question.

"Danny's doing well. The repairs to his guts seem to be holding." She smiled. "Your mom and her team do great work."

"Just like they did for Zane?" Zoe's smile was bright.

Jo blinked in confusion. "Zane?"

"Yes. Zane. I know he had some surgery in Hawaii last fall." Zoe flipped her hair. "Dad called me when Max was having a giant teething meltdown. He didn't want to bother Allison."

Jo eyed them both, her expression considering. Finally she said, "Zane is fine. Danny will be too, I'm sure."

Before Zoe could pursue it any further, Zane himself appeared. Sliding into the seat next to Jo, he said, "I can't decide which is worse, gushing parents or suck-up kids."

"Flirting kids?" Jo offered, her brow raised in a mockery of innocence.

Zane shot her an exasperated look, even as he slid closer to her. "Ha. Ha."

His glance fell on Kevin. "You've gotta work on your happy face, dude."

"Did you do it?"

"What? Give it to you?"

Kevin nodded.

"No, man. I voted for the smog reduction project. But it was two to one for you guys."

"Celebrity voting." Kevin curled his lip in disgust. "Or sucking up."

"Probably a little of both. But," Zane quirked his lips into a sympathetic smile, "it's part of the game. One day you won't win when you should have, so..." he trailed off, but the unsaid 'sack up' hung in the air anyway.

Which was surprisingly good news. Kevin felt his black mood lift a little with the confirmation of his suspicions. Catching a meaningful side-eye from Zoe, he said, "So, how many missions you guys gone on with McGarrett?"

"Missions? Really?" Zane snorted. "That's your ask?"

Kevin felt his skin heat, so he shrugged like he didn't care that Zane was laughing at him.

Evidently taking pity on him, Zane said, "We met rock climbing. For real, dude. But he's run across the Consortium in his own work, so we share information sometimes."

The Consortium had attacked his mom at least four times, nearly killing her each time, so the more help Jack had in taking them down for good, the better, as far as Kevin was concerned. And Steve McGarrett packed a lot of help. But he still thought there was more to it than data sharing.

"Speaking of Steve," Jo intervened, "we should probably get going. We promised to bring them dinner at the infirmary, and it looks like Vincent has it ready."

Vincent arrived, carryout boxes in hand just as Jo and Zane made it to their feet. They thanked him and left, slipping out before any more kids or parents from Tesla could stop them. As soon as the door closed behind them, Vincent dropped into the booth.

"So?" He looked back and forth between them. "What did you learn?"

"They've definitely done missions before. Chasing down the Consortium," Zoe replied.

"And Jo was all 'neither confirm nor deny,' but Zane must have been hurt pretty bad during the one in Hawaii last fall," Kevin added.

"That's what I have too," Vincent nodded. "Parish let slip that he was grabbed by the Consortium a year ago, at that weapons conference he likes to go to. Jo rescued him, with the help of McGarrett's SEAL team."

"Huh." Kevin nodded, impressed. "That's cool."

Vincent's voice dropped. "Did you hear about McAdams?"

Kevin blinked. "McAdams? No. I wondered where he was today though. I thought he'd at least have the stones to show up and check out the Science Fair."

Vincent shook his head, the mournful regret on his face completely undermined by the excited glint in his eye. "The sheriff arrested him last night as he was skipping town. His neighbor, Mrs. Klosterberg, saw him leaving home around 3pm, said he looked like he'd seen a ghost, packing his car in a rush, dropping papers, running in and out. And Carl Benson was out for a run when he saw the Sheriff and two of Jo's security vehicles head out of town around 5. And Mary Loomis said there was definitely someone in the Security holding cell last night, because she cleaned it this morning. And his car is parked in its usual place up at RI."

Zoe reached over and took Vincent's hand. "They ought to figure out how to patent you, Vincent."

Vincent beamed at her.

"Why was he skipping out?" Kevin was baffled. "Zane isn't going to arrest anyone for screwing the pooch on one project. Or have them redacted."

Zoe leaned forward, barely contained excitement in her lowered voice. "I think I got this one. He was a spy. Working for the Consortium. Smoking him out is why McGarrett and Rollins brought Williams all the way here, instead of taking him to a normal hospital near wherever it was he got hurt. Cover for nailing a traitor."

"What?" Kevin knew he must look like a cartoon character, all bulging eyes and open mouth. "How do you know that?!"

"Well, I thought it was really weird the way he stayed hiding in the kitchen the other night, when he should have been out front, sucking up to Allison and Jo. And Zane. Especially Zane. Instead, he jumped like a spooked kitten every time McGarrett or Rollins even looked at him. So I mentioned it to SARAH. She reviewed her recordings agreed it was strange, and so we started tapping her various lady networks. You know," she nodded at Kevin, "the book groups and the cooking group and the canning group. Turns out he'd been creeping out everyone in his section, asking questions, poking around, always listening." Zoe nodded firmly. "Spying."

"But, how did McGarrett and Rollins get on to him? I thought he was totally legit." Kevin shivered, horrified that he'd invited a Consortium goon into SARAH. Near his mom.

"Well, not him, so much as they were chasing down a rumor that there was a spy in Eureka, and that's when Detective Williams got hurt, so they brought him here." Zoe shrugged and winked. "I happened to overhear dad talking to Jo about it in the Sheriff's Office. When I met him for lunch today."

"So, then, McAdams was spooked enough to run. Revealing the plot and the Sherriff and Lupo saved the day. Again." Vincent sat back, a wide grin splitting his face. "That is so awesome."

_Wednesday afternoon, Jo and Zane's House, Eureka, Oregon_

Steve shifted the phone to his other hand and kicked his feet up onto the porch railing when he heard Doris answer. "Hey mom."

"Hey, honey! How's Danny?"

Steve smiled. "He's good. Really good. He came through surgery yesterday in solid shape and it looks like the repair to his guts is going to hold. It's all rest and recovery from here on out."

"Excellent! Will he be able to travel soon?"

"No," Steve sighed. "They want to keep him here for several more weeks. So I'm on my way home, flying out in the morning."

"Just you?"

"Yeah! Turns out there's work here for Catherine. She's been temporarily re-assigned to the Joint Chiefs, under Mansfield. She'll be working with Jo on a project as long as Danny needs to stay."

"That was the price?"

"A part of it, mom. A part of it."

"Hmm."

"Don't make me say it."

"Okay," she said. He could hear her smug grin anyway. "I won't make you say it."

He smiled wryly, "Thanks." They both knew he might as well have, but they had their own system. He took another sip of his beer. "Heard from Mary recently?"

As he listened to his mother worry about his sister's latest job, he looked out at the mountains and agreed with Zane. It could all be a lot worse.

i Many, many thanks to my fannish friend Meredith for her suggestions and conversation about what kind of science project Kevin and his friends would undertake.

ii It's a real study. Mills et al, 2008, _Gender Equity and Fertility Intentions_. .nl/document/489854


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